The Future of Torque 3D is Open Source!
by Dave Wyand · 09/10/2012 (9:03 am) · 95 comments
The Future of Torque 3D is Open Source!
The big news coming out of GarageGames today is that Torque 3D will be going open source under the MIT license. This is huge, and something that we’ve discussed internally for a while. Eric has just posted a blog talking about why Torque 3D is heading in this direction and a little of the history behind the decision. If you haven’t yet read Eric’s blog please head over there and read it first.The other piece of news that I’m excited to share is that I will be leading the charge on future Torque 3D development with the help of, well, you, of course!
Personal Introduction
While the veterans out there know who I am, many of our newer community members may not. I’ve been a part of the GarageGames community since January 2002, and most of that time I’ve been an Associate. My first commercial game dev product was Torque ShowTool Pro in 2004, which was one of the first 3rd party products sold through the GarageGames online store. Those were exciting times when the whole Indie game development scene was trying to define itself and building momentum.After the launch of TST Pro I began working closely with GarageGames. I’ve had my hand in nearly every game engine we have launched (plus a few internal ones), and along the way I came on board full-time (and have been for a number of years now). Last year I was the Technical Lead on Torque 3D 1.2, the last retail version of the engine.
In 2010 I launched my own gaming portal Zworldo that focused on Torque 3D based web games. A lot of what I learned there made its way back into T3D 1.2, which shows that it really helps to use the products you make.
How will the open source version work?
We’ve chosen GitHub to host the Torque 3D repositories. GitHub has taken on the role of the location for Open Source projects on the Internet. It allows for great community interaction, encourages the forking of code bases, and easy merging of changes. And if you’re not yet into git (GitHub for Windows and Mac are tools that really help), GitHub supports both Subversion access and automatic Zip archives of all repositories.
Anyone may have Read Access to the public Torque 3D repositories. You create your own fork and do your development work there. You can merge updates from the master branch into your own as they become available. And if you have changes you wish to share with the community to be integrated back into the master, you create a pull request and someone with Write Access can review the changes and merge them in.
Who will maintain the repositories?
To maintain the master Torque 3D branch a committee will be set up that has Write Access and may respond to pull requests. This committee is dedicated to making the best core version of Torque 3D so that others can build upon a reliable foundation. Performance, reliability, maintainability and scalability (should turn that into a crest :) are the goals of this committee.The launch committee will consist of the following GarageGames members:
- Dave Wyand
- Eric Preisz
- David Montgomery-Blake
- Scott Burns
Quote:Our mission is to build a foundation for a sustainable environment that fosters collaboration and community development of the greatest open source game development platform.
However, we don’t believe that committee members should only come from GarageGames. One of our primary tasks is to seek out and retain qualified core team members that are dedicated to our goals. Over time everyone but myself will be replaced by members of the community and the committee will be allowed to grow as required.
What will be included in the open source version?
The complete Torque 3D 1.2 source code, along with the four starting templates, will be included in the GitHub repository. A separate repository for reference documentation will be set up. Other items, such as the FPS Tutorial template, will be part of a separate download to help keep the main repository to a manageable size.There are other, closed source components of Torque 3D that I would like to open up following our launch.
Post Launch
Following the launch of Torque 3D on GitHub, another job of the committee will be to come up with a roadmap. We’ve decided to wait until after launch to do this because we want community feedback to help chart our course. My personal list of things I’d like all of us to tackle are:- Performance and bugs
- Further separation of core from other layers
- Additional platforms (OSX and Linux)
- Dave
About the author
Producer at GarageGames LLC
#82
- Dave
09/12/2012 (11:13 am)
I should also add that we did pay someone this year to update the current OSX platform. I believe the Community Edition guys have access to that code. It isn't production ready and needs to be cleaned up, and I'm not sure if anyone in the GG office managed to get it to work (I couldn't, but I had an older Mac system at the time). It could form the basis of fixing up the OSX Carbon platform layer after we launch the master branch.- Dave
#83
Maybe, like Dave suggests, we'll catch the attention of some actual Mac programmers in the near future.
09/12/2012 (11:27 am)
Alfio would have to confirm, but I believe he decided to end his attempt at adding the Mac port to the CE. Something about horrible and confusing code... and one of the conditions of the CE was to improve the quality of the codebase, not worsen it! One other person volunteered to handle the Mac port for the CE a month before Alfio, yet we never saw any result out of that. Maybe, like Dave suggests, we'll catch the attention of some actual Mac programmers in the near future.
#84
For example, we already plan on improving the platform layer code and replacing all Carbon with Cocoa in T2D. There's no reason why we can't work with Dave on this.
09/12/2012 (11:29 am)
Additionally, it would be silly if there was not collaboration between the 2D team and the 3D team. Both T3D and T2D have exclusive improvements that should be shared right now. Future development will crossover as well.For example, we already plan on improving the platform layer code and replacing all Carbon with Cocoa in T2D. There's no reason why we can't work with Dave on this.
#85
Wow actually it was snow leopard. wow.
Programming isn't my forte Art is but I have a brand new MacBook Pro Retina is someone needs some testing done. if there is anything I can do to contribute. Hit me up!
09/12/2012 (12:10 pm)
if my understanding is correct carbon is officially no longer supported as of lion am I correct on this? does this mean it wont compile at all on anything newer?Wow actually it was snow leopard. wow.
Programming isn't my forte Art is but I have a brand new MacBook Pro Retina is someone needs some testing done. if there is anything I can do to contribute. Hit me up!
#86
Example of how fast they change things around: In Snow Leopard they added some new features for kiosk/fullscreen mode. In Lion they removed them without even an OS release with a deprecation warning. The replacement is way better, though. It was just…a bit sudden.
I need to look at the Cocoa work so far, because I'm almost ready to try it for TGB. Almost…sort of want an iT2D release of some kind to build on first.
09/12/2012 (1:42 pm)
Carbon is bordering on being removed from the SDK. Still some legacy Carbon software out there, and Valve somehow decided Carbon was the right thing for Steam. I think it's pretty much the existence of Steam which keeps it in the OS!Example of how fast they change things around: In Snow Leopard they added some new features for kiosk/fullscreen mode. In Lion they removed them without even an OS release with a deprecation warning. The replacement is way better, though. It was just…a bit sudden.
I need to look at the Cocoa work so far, because I'm almost ready to try it for TGB. Almost…sort of want an iT2D release of some kind to build on first.
#87
09/12/2012 (2:54 pm)
Although nothing to do with Games, but this would be something for the world of Geographic Information Systems. 
#89
Wow, I am impressed to see that you guys are looking at bringing back OSX and Linux. Back in the TGE days it was Linux compatibility that brought me to GG. Now I use Windows for my contract work it was less critical than when I used to be a Linux only guy. However, having a Linux port officially would be awesome. Especially an MIT licensed Linux port. You will most likely eclipse every OSS project on Linux that tries to be a game engine. GG and Linux will very likely bring you to millions of overseas developers in India, China, etc! This is awesome.
09/12/2012 (9:43 pm)
@Dave Wyand,Wow, I am impressed to see that you guys are looking at bringing back OSX and Linux. Back in the TGE days it was Linux compatibility that brought me to GG. Now I use Windows for my contract work it was less critical than when I used to be a Linux only guy. However, having a Linux port officially would be awesome. Especially an MIT licensed Linux port. You will most likely eclipse every OSS project on Linux that tries to be a game engine. GG and Linux will very likely bring you to millions of overseas developers in India, China, etc! This is awesome.
#90
(The latest EULA still did stipulate that Torque must be used for games, right? I don't remember that changing...)
I'm also pretty stoked about the possibility of porting T3D to Linux!
09/12/2012 (11:37 pm)
Sjoerd: GIS applications are now totally cool under the MIT license. One of the cool parts, in my opinion!(The latest EULA still did stipulate that Torque must be used for games, right? I don't remember that changing...)
I'm also pretty stoked about the possibility of porting T3D to Linux!
#91
I think we will see many applications for Torque that wasn't possible under the old conditions. This is truly great.
@Frank:
Yeah, I'll bet there will be lots of T3D clones, some incredibly bad, some totally awesome. Especially from countries like China. I just hope they give some back to the community though. A linux port will probably arrive shortly after the MIT version is released.
I think Valve is working on a linux port of their Source engine too.
09/13/2012 (2:35 am)
@Daniel.I think we will see many applications for Torque that wasn't possible under the old conditions. This is truly great.
@Frank:
Yeah, I'll bet there will be lots of T3D clones, some incredibly bad, some totally awesome. Especially from countries like China. I just hope they give some back to the community though. A linux port will probably arrive shortly after the MIT version is released.
I think Valve is working on a linux port of their Source engine too.
#92
That's the greatest thing about the MIT licensing, really: People can make any sort of product.
09/13/2012 (3:37 pm)
@Daniel: I think the last EULA made it so you could do anything, AND only limited income with non-game applications. But it should still be up here on this site, so you can dig through the wall of legalese if you really want to ;)That's the greatest thing about the MIT licensing, really: People can make any sort of product.
#93
The older EULA for TGE stipulated an additional license fee when you exceeded the revenue cap (was $250k if I recall) but in my quick perusal I did not see what the resolution to the above item is currently. Perhaps David MB would have more complete info, or contact licensing@garagegames.com.
But any way you look at it the MIT license is far better for the community at large. Like Ronny just said - "people can make any sort of product."
09/14/2012 (8:37 am)
Current EULA re: games and "non-games" - Quote:
2.1.2. develop and distribute in object code format only, an unlimited number of Non-Games for Personal Computers to the extent that Your gross revenue from the sale of software and related products for the most recent calendar year was less than $500,000;
The older EULA for TGE stipulated an additional license fee when you exceeded the revenue cap (was $250k if I recall) but in my quick perusal I did not see what the resolution to the above item is currently. Perhaps David MB would have more complete info, or contact licensing@garagegames.com.
But any way you look at it the MIT license is far better for the community at large. Like Ronny just said - "people can make any sort of product."
#94
09/28/2012 (12:42 pm)
Linux please! :-) 
#95
09/28/2012 (12:48 pm)
@Brian: The dedicated server can be build on Linux if you merge those changes: Required changes to the Torque3D to make it Linux-compatible. 
Employee Dave Wyand
For the open source launch the code will be very close to what we have in the retail version of T3D 1.2. So no changes to the Mac code initially.
However, as I mentioned in my blog, I would like us to work on updating both the OSX and Linux platforms. I have a new MacBook here so I don't mind getting my hands dirty with OSX code. But as I understand how things are going on OSX, we really should just replace the Carbon-based OSX platform layer with a Cocoa one if we want to do this right.
I'll be looking for people in the community with more experience than me that can help out with these platforms. In the past we've had trouble finding experts to make these work from beginning to end, even with the possibility of being paid. Hopefully under a difference license, we'll catch the imagination of some platform stars.
- Dave