What exactly is Torque 3D?

#1 It's a mystery to everyone. (eccept GG)
It's the next incarnation of tgea.

#2 well tge and tgea to me seems more like a build it your self engine. t3d seems more like unity only better to where it comes with most of the stuff to made your game instead of doing all the hard code work your self to set it up right. if you look at unity pro it cost you 2k i think and t3d will be better at a lower price it might not have everything unity has but its got stuff in it that's already better then unity pro.

its still a mystery engine but that's what it looks like its turning into is a engine for teams that don't have a programmer as its hard to find a programmer to do all the code work for tge or tgea and if you do find one most of them want high pay.

#3 I highly doubt that what they're doing will "replace" a programmer. There's just too many things that will require the skills of a programmer.

'course, I always thought it's difficult to find an artist myself... but, I guess that's because I'm a programmer myself, I guess.

Let's try not to speculate too much on what it'll become. I'd be afraid that it'd raise people's expectations... and maybe even make people think that such things were promised by GG. I can see it now... "Oh, I read a post by someone else and in there you PROMISED to remove the need for a programmer!"

#4 i never said it would replace a programmer but they have put some real nice things that would take a programmer for ever to put in they just lowering what a programmer needs to code look like.

hmm hard to find a 3d artiest i see so many of those posts i don't know why it would be hard. even if they don't say they not a 3d artiest you should ask one that releases 3d objects in a pack and ask them to make a special order just for and make the item or items only for your game. you don't have to higher one full time to gt a 3d artiest just a small contract to make some items you need.

#5 It's the product name (tentative/pending) for the next incarnation of the advanced Torque 3D game engine -- no mystery at all.

EDIT: It's like everything we know about Torque but "better" as you can tell from all of the recent blogs about it.

#6 Michael has it correct. There's no mystery here. Since TGE is officially no longer supported, and all development for 3D engines will now happen on the TGEA branch of Torque, the "A" in TGEA seems kind of superfluous. Thus, the renaming of our 3D engine to Torque 3D. Why aren't we doing that with TGEA 1.8.1? A clean break in naming with our next major release seems like a smarter way to go.

So yes, Torque 3D will be *very* similar to TGEA in some ways. Many of the subsystems are identical, some have been refactored or recoded entirely. There are additional tools, updates to existing tools, and additional engine functionality throughout. Everything we're ready to say has been said in the Torque 3D development blogs.

#7 Thanks for the answers everyone, I have been away for a bit, so many changes here at GG put me astray. I'm also happy to see that GG is considering us TGEA owners as I read in the blog.

#8 I'm currently using TGE 1.4.2. If I wanted to port my game to TGEA or T3D, how long/complicated would this be? I'm thinking about finishing my game on TGE 1.4.2 (since it is the engine I have owned since 2005). After seeing how well my game runs, I will port it to a more advanced engine. I am trying to save money by doing this. Would it just be better to earn some money for TGEA or T3D and then develop my game? I have most of the concept art & design templates already created. I'm so far behind in "Torque Technology".

#9 I would simply release your game with TGE since you have the licenses anyways, and if it goes well.. make a sequel to it in Torque3d.