Preview of updated Torque Docs Available

#1 Thanks. That is a great start. But personally I think this manual is like a reference book. Perhaps tutorial guide will also available. Start with a simple project, fps, then go advance to tennis critter like game.

#2 Hello, I am currently working on just that. I step by step guild to creating pong (i believe that is what I am going to go with). I am trying to start with a completely blank project and you will have to write some c++, then after that write a main.cs script. But its going to be a start from scratch approach.

If anybody is interested in helping it would be great. I have already been talking to the employees so we are all working on making it really easy to get into torque. Contact me if you are interested in help or feel free to send me questions you would like to see answered.

Ben ( zander at echotech.ca )

#3 Wow....I was about to put Torque away for a couple of months....now it just got my attention again!

#4 Thanks for the kudos. Not many changes over the holidays but we are rallying the troops now that everyone is back. I hope to see steady progress on the doc front for the next while. anyone would like to contribute please drop me an email and let me know what you have in mind.

--Rick

#5 Rick, I am going through the pre-release documentation right now and it looks good. I like the layout as well. I also plan on supporting this effort by purchasing the Torque Documentation as soon as it is released.

Ben, the approach you are taking to your tutorial sounds perfect. It is always best to learn by doing, rather than by attempting to dissect another person's code (imho). Having the user build a small game from scratch is the way to go. Also, the inclusion of some C++ in your tutorial will be a bonus. I wish I could help you out, but I am still very much a novice.

#6 Since the new documention uses DocBook generating .chm files is easy. In fact I have already done it -- a few image issues to resolve but otherwise works perfectly.

#7 Is it also possible to include a "build a sample game" type tutorial?

#8 Hrm...that might actually be hard...since technically, Torque already comes with a game...of course, if you were talking about building one from scratch, well yeah, I'm all up for that!

#9 It shouldnt be. Most of the tutorials and docs found here on the site are just for modifications and references for realm wars. That maybe good enough for some folks but people like me need more than just references. There should at least be a simple "your first torque game" type tutorial where it shows the steps from the beginging to end. The game doesnt have to be GOOD....just enough to get your feet wet.

#10 Whats the latest news on this?

#11 We will post news when it is available. There have been many mini-app tutorials posted int the resources in the past week. They are not official GG tutorials, but they are very helpful.

-Jeff

#12 I'm new to Torque and I would really like to see the "build this small app from scratch" tutorial. I think the biggest thing to me would be to see how the engine flows (when it loads scripts and what it does with those scripts etc...) a roadmap of sorts. I guess what I'm missing is were to start in the code and in what order. I'm not really interested in making small modifications but learning by doing my own stuff and if I hit a snag than go look at how someone else is doing it. I bought the engine with the understanding that it is diffcult to start but I'm spending more time research bits and pieces in the tutorials and posts than trying to program because I'm not sure were how everything fits together. Just IMHO. I think the best ones I've seen are the mini-apps tutorials but that just say "place this here" and not "place this here because this piece does this and this piece does this."

#13 here yah go

#14 John,

If you are referring to my Min App tutorials than you are probably right. I do need to do more of the "why" and i'll try to make an effort to do that. The main problem is right now, in the early stages, we really find outrselves just putting stuff "back" that should have been there in the first place, and there isn't really all that much to learn from it.

This next one, #5 though, starts seeing some really in depth work with lots to learn. That's the main reason it has been taking me so long.

#15 I've thought about doing a "min app" tutorial that combined all the scripts into one, but I have no time. Obviously in a real application, keeping code in modules makes it easier to maintain.

But for learning a system, having most everything in one file has great benefit. If you've ever looked at the DirectX SDK, for example, you'll find two types of sample projects: tutorials and projects that illustrate some technique/API. The tutorials contain all the code in one file, making things easy to follow and understand. The other pojects have a common set of reusable files/classes to minimize the amount of code you have to look at. This makes it easier to see JUST that part of the code that is needed for the technique/API being demonstrated. The tutorials are nice because you don't have to dig through 20 files and classes to see what's being done for you, at the expense of disorganized code.

Ideally, some of the resources, such as the SimpleTorqueDemo, could include two zip files: one with just the stripped down versions of the scripts and one version that has all the code in one file. To make things even simpler, removing the notion of the packages from the super-stripped down version would be nice for first time users.

To summarize an "ideal" beginner set of script tutorials:
1. Have one script file, main.cs, with ALL the code necessary to show a bitmap and an Exit button. This would mean having the GUI file's text included in main.cs. It would ideally not use any packages, to simplify what functions are being called and when.

2. Have one (or possibly three) script file that does the same thing, but includes packages. If you put all the code related to a package in a separate file, it might demonstrate how to better organize the code (since it is hierarchical with the ability to use Parent::onStart, for example).

3. Build on steps 2's code by adding support for a console window, but combine all the related code into one file or possibly 2 (one for the "code" and one for the "gui").

4. Finally, build up a set of tutorials more like the current MinApp tutorials, that show how to better organize code into separate files and packages. Each MinApp tutorial expanding on previous ones to introduce new topics.

That's my two cents, having struggled, like many, to get a grip on just what all those script files are doing.

btw, kudos go out to the SimpleTorquDemo and MinApp authors for taking the time to help explain the basics of the scripts. While you can follow along with something like starter.fps, you can often get lost in which package is active, which function (and in which file) is getting called when, etc.

-Nerseus

#16 Ok, I found some time to make a Super Simple Torque Demo. It's not boiled down to one script, but it is very small and explained in depth for beginners. Hopefully a good companion to Joel Baxter's Scripting Language Reference - a place where beginners can tweak scripts and see the outcome.

-Nerseus

#17 Thanks Nerseus! Your resource cleared up a lot of things for me. The best beginner resource I have read yet.