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TSE main benefits?

by Juuso - Polycount Productions · in General Discussion · 01/04/2006 (10:07 am) · 11 replies

I'm not familiar with the TSE, so I would like to hear more detailed information:

1) Is TSE "just" making Torque engine more powerful renderer?

2) Do they update the network system? (I heard rumours about MMO games... that their making would be easier in TSE?)
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Torque Owner Kirby Webber
#1
01/04/2006 (10:19 am)
TSE does represent a significant update to the rendering engine of Torque - bringing it in line with many modern commercial game engines, i.e. normal maps, bump maps, shaders, etc.

It doesn't end their though - TSE is basically being built from the ground up all over again. It's going to be a significant code "clean-up" per se' as well as seeing some full blown code replacement.

As an example, the old terrain code from TGE has been completely replaced with the all new "Atlas" terrain engine.

Atlas not only supports bump mapping, shaders, etc, but supports arbitrarily sized terrains (as big or small as you want) and multiple terrains.

Basically, think of TSE as a whole new beast.

Juuso - Polycount Productions
#2
01/04/2006 (10:25 am)
Okay... what about that network code?

Torque Owner Stefan Lundmark
#3
01/04/2006 (10:58 am)
It will most likely stay the same, it's excellent already. (Why would they gear towards an MMO network-architecture when this is not their intended market?)

Torque 3D Owner Michael Cozzolino
Big Monk Games
#4
01/04/2006 (11:23 am)
I think at one time GG was bouncing around the idea of a MMO pack something along the lines of the RTS pack. I don't think it went any farther than that though. I'm sure even if it is something they want to do it would be way down the line.

Torque 3D Owner Ted Southard
#5
01/04/2006 (1:03 pm)
I do recall at the IGC, during the MMO track, where the speaker (I just remember him as that guy from Jersey) said that the only network hitch for TGE/TSE was the lack of integrated SQL code. And that itself is easily remedied with any one of three or four resources to solve that issue.

And as Josh Ritter's Minions of Mirth shows, it's possible. What TSE brings to the table is a better renderer and larger terrains, as well as the fixes and stability of TGE with a good bit of cleaning up. The problems I have making my game have nothing to do with the engine ;)

Torque Owner Kirby Webber
#6
01/04/2006 (1:21 pm)
There are resources available to TGE owners that will walk you through setting up a basic MMO with Torque.

Haven't tried them myself - but they exist.

Torque 3D Owner Jonathon Stevens
#7
01/04/2006 (2:33 pm)
Wait, I thought MoM was built on TGE not TSE?

Torque Owner Kirby Webber
#8
01/04/2006 (2:35 pm)
It is, but as stated previously, the networking code in TSE is (virtually) the same code that's in TGE, so setup would be (virtually) identical.

Torque 3D Owner Jay Barnson
#9
01/04/2006 (7:44 pm)
MoM is TGE 1.3, I think. Modified and customized, obviously, but it shows what's possible.

Juuso - Polycount Productions
#10
01/04/2006 (9:38 pm)
Ok. This clears all what I needed. Thanks people.

Torque Owner Stefan Lundmark
#11
01/05/2006 (8:36 pm)
We all know the first M in MMOG means alot and honestly MoM hasn't been out for long enough and cannot be considered massive with the userbase it currently has. Not bashing MoM, it looks great and I wish I was in Ritter's shoes, but it's still not a MMOG.

I know I will get alot of cake for that comment, but truth is no MMOG has been released with TGE/TSE yet that has been proven to be working in a production-ready MMOG enviorment yet, so until then I wouldn't use it as an example.