torque books

#1 The game programmers guide to torque helped me a lot, but it only covers scripting and is based on tge.
There is a multiplayer book by the same author, haven't bought or read it tho.

#2 1: nope, just install 1.2

2: forget the books, study the engine classes, the scripts accompanying the engine, and go in dept on the mechanics of the resources already here in the community. That will bring you all you need regarding learning to use this game engine source package.

3: ok, here we goes...
A: forget all the books out there about mmo's. Alongside learning the architecture of T3D, plan and document how you plan to construct your own extremely huge project.

B: please read this thread -all from beginning to end The MMO thread

C: Unless you can dive into code, it will be really hard to undertake a MO. If you can 3D model, 2D GUI/soncept art, storytelling or similar contribute to a MMO it's possible to end up with some helpers that feel for your project. None the less, it's a task that will take forever, and most likely just add you to the hall of attempters -it's quite long by now.

So, the info is right before you here in this site, and sorry to sound negative, it is not the intention. Merely advising you on the extremely huge task your to endavour with an MMO attempt.

*I do know about the workload, as I'm working on one

#3 On a sidenote, a good way of learning and understanding is using the forums. I learned all about how to code in the engine, by looking into the code (As Christian stated above) and looking at forum threads.
And if something hasn't been discussed before you can always start a new thread.

Also I will be happy to help you where I'm able to if you contact me.
I'm not a Torque veteran, neither am I a C++ guru, but I know my way around certain aspects of the engine.

My Improved Particle System for T3D is solely based on creativity and reading the forums.

#4 Thanks gents, yes I've tried writing mmos before...yes hard work..but i have no timetable, and no desparate need to "complete" one, just for playing really. Torque seems perfect for fps though, fairly out of the box..so that will be my first port of call and get that pretty secure in my head before I tackle anything else...

Thanks both of you, you are not coming across as negative so don't worry, I appreciate the honesty about the size of the task! I just figured if I give myself a long term end goal I'll feel a bit more constructive about what I am pottering about with.

So in summary then, resources on this site, forum if stuck..trial and error, be willing to learn from your mistakes...good advice, got it thanks gents!

#5 One thing I read is that T3D C++/TS is not really up to the task for creating an MMO as is. One particular developer got around this by grafting a scripting language onto the engine. That is where the original PyTorque came from for TGE. In my opinion now is a great time to be using T3D for such a project because of the upcoming .NET addition to T3D and the newer Python resource that I wrote. These should help provide the tools necessary to do projects that require extensive external resources like an MMO. I think a lot of the work of an MMO is the web side of things. You really need a server cluster with a web app to support the actual client written in a game engine. The game engine is really a small part of the whole setup.

#6 The books by Ken Finney and Ed Maurina are all good books for learning to use the Torque family of engines, but they were all written for TGE. Much has changed in T3D, but TorqueScript still works pretty much the same way - I think the string switch (switch$) and foreach were added and of course the back-end class structure is a little different, but if you can script for TGE then T3D is a short hop.

So, it depends on your learning style - if you like to have a book at hand to work from, then they're all helpful but not perfect. If you learn better from forums or Q/A style discussions then we're always here, and you can use our weak and wonky search to try to find answers on the site.

#7 Ken Finney has a new book written for Torque 3D as well. (search amazon)

#8 thanks all, I guess the Ken Finney book is for 1.1? Is 1.2 different enough to merit a new book?

I bloody well hope so as I am forking out £40 for it :o)