Help.. Torque 3D low-down...
by Bruce McAleer · in Game Design and Creative Issues · 06/12/2009 (2:18 pm) · 8 replies
Hi,
Ok, Don't know if anyone could help me out.. got a few questions re the Torque 3D tool, but a quick answer is good..
I work in SW design, know my C & C++ pretty well, program design, OOD/P etc, bit of Java, few scripting and other languages, made a few non-grapics apps before for various platforms, know the basics of graphics, graph theory, maths etc.., this will be my first proper game (made basic 2D one on Symbian). Looking to make a 3D RPG for PC (to run on Windows ideally), and wondering about the Torque 3D tools...
If anyone could help give me a v quick lo down of the tool would be great...
I guess basicaly how many man months would it take to make a baisc 3D RPG (only working evenings.. ;). And i Guess is it a small studio tool, or something 1/2 (soz 1 or 2 people (not that short)) could put together in say a few months....
*Is any or all of Torque 3D GUI (e.g. creating graphics, is there paint type package?)
*Seems from web site there is a Torque script, can you program in other languages (e.g. C)?
*How do you hook/compile the diff parts of it together (user input, game engine, displaying graphics)
*Do you access any of it though APIs (e.g. using/calling pysics engine from your game engine?)
*Can you program your own engine (e.g. defining character classes, actions, NPC (enemy greeblies..) AI, actual game engine/game rule mechanics)
**How do you implement user input-display/terrain interaction (e.g. target enemy character through mouse click (i.e. *crux* mouse click on enemy on screen and your program knows on internal 2D(?) map/graph that character x wants to interact with/move to item y, e.g. hook in APIs to your own code or GUIs/automatic tools provided to link user input with avatar movement on screen)
*Basically *mainly* How much of the tools are designed around you writing your own code, and how much does the tool do for you..
*cheeky* any other !beginner! tools out there to recomend to a beginner has idea of game/game mechanics wants to implement, needs tools to help him do it?)
*double cheeky* How optimised/fast is tool/generated code? Have an old 3GHz single core PC, 1GB RAM, NVidia 7600GS, at mo but will be getting a top notch quad core 2/4/8?!GB RAM PC etc etc that I can build for ~£1k in next couple months..
Literally if anyone could give a quick low down/feel of the tool anything would be great...
Big thanks,
Bruce
Ok, Don't know if anyone could help me out.. got a few questions re the Torque 3D tool, but a quick answer is good..
I work in SW design, know my C & C++ pretty well, program design, OOD/P etc, bit of Java, few scripting and other languages, made a few non-grapics apps before for various platforms, know the basics of graphics, graph theory, maths etc.., this will be my first proper game (made basic 2D one on Symbian). Looking to make a 3D RPG for PC (to run on Windows ideally), and wondering about the Torque 3D tools...
If anyone could help give me a v quick lo down of the tool would be great...
I guess basicaly how many man months would it take to make a baisc 3D RPG (only working evenings.. ;). And i Guess is it a small studio tool, or something 1/2 (soz 1 or 2 people (not that short)) could put together in say a few months....
*Is any or all of Torque 3D GUI (e.g. creating graphics, is there paint type package?)
*Seems from web site there is a Torque script, can you program in other languages (e.g. C)?
*How do you hook/compile the diff parts of it together (user input, game engine, displaying graphics)
*Do you access any of it though APIs (e.g. using/calling pysics engine from your game engine?)
*Can you program your own engine (e.g. defining character classes, actions, NPC (enemy greeblies..) AI, actual game engine/game rule mechanics)
**How do you implement user input-display/terrain interaction (e.g. target enemy character through mouse click (i.e. *crux* mouse click on enemy on screen and your program knows on internal 2D(?) map/graph that character x wants to interact with/move to item y, e.g. hook in APIs to your own code or GUIs/automatic tools provided to link user input with avatar movement on screen)
*Basically *mainly* How much of the tools are designed around you writing your own code, and how much does the tool do for you..
*cheeky* any other !beginner! tools out there to recomend to a beginner has idea of game/game mechanics wants to implement, needs tools to help him do it?)
*double cheeky* How optimised/fast is tool/generated code? Have an old 3GHz single core PC, 1GB RAM, NVidia 7600GS, at mo but will be getting a top notch quad core 2/4/8?!GB RAM PC etc etc that I can build for ~£1k in next couple months..
Literally if anyone could give a quick low down/feel of the tool anything would be great...
Big thanks,
Bruce
#2
06/12/2009 (2:55 pm)
This actually answers a lot of my questions too. I know for sure my team and I will be purchasing Torque 3D for our project. What tools would you personally recommend we use with T3D to take proper advantage of it? We want to get the best we can out of T3D.
#3
The best place to look is documentation and check out the work flows presented, as well as the setup docs. They go over some of the most popular tools, and should give you a good idea what is generally used when working with the engine.
06/12/2009 (9:36 pm)
Well, for scripting I use Torsion, and I use Paint Shop Pro for the 2d art I put in (but I'm old school and cheap).The best place to look is documentation and check out the work flows presented, as well as the setup docs. They go over some of the most popular tools, and should give you a good idea what is generally used when working with the engine.
#4
06/13/2009 (12:16 am)
Thanks a lot. I'll be all over the documentation for sure. I'll have the devs looking into torsion as we are starting and getting them to learn it.
#5
With the usual anguish that comes from having to rewrite long emails, in summary:
How good of a coder are you?
Have degree in electronics, worked as SW design engineer for ~7yrs writing embedded SW for real-time OS environments using C/C++, got a few IDEs Eclipse/VisualStudio/Netbeans etc, and compilers. Haven't written any apps for Windows before.
- How fast can you learn Torque?
Learnt how to program for Symbian OS fairly comprehensively in about 4 months full time, Java basic animation in a couple of weeks..
- What is a "basic 3D RPG"?
Say something like Morrowind/Oblivion, but with closer multi-player/combat interaction, ideally later networked/over IP.
- Define how long those "evenings" are?
Working full time on PhD in Mobiles/Networking, trying to get reasonably early nights, have girl friend, currently building decking in back garden...
Sorry not better reply lost technical stuff on other PC, if ok will post again soon with a better response/questions once have recovered HDD.
Thanks again for great reply,
Bruce
06/14/2009 (10:09 am)
Sorry for late reply, wanted to reply quickly to your brilliant response, but unfortunately my PC blew up last night, so am using spare..With the usual anguish that comes from having to rewrite long emails, in summary:
How good of a coder are you?
Have degree in electronics, worked as SW design engineer for ~7yrs writing embedded SW for real-time OS environments using C/C++, got a few IDEs Eclipse/VisualStudio/Netbeans etc, and compilers. Haven't written any apps for Windows before.
- How fast can you learn Torque?
Learnt how to program for Symbian OS fairly comprehensively in about 4 months full time, Java basic animation in a couple of weeks..
- What is a "basic 3D RPG"?
Say something like Morrowind/Oblivion, but with closer multi-player/combat interaction, ideally later networked/over IP.
- Define how long those "evenings" are?
Working full time on PhD in Mobiles/Networking, trying to get reasonably early nights, have girl friend, currently building decking in back garden...
Sorry not better reply lost technical stuff on other PC, if ok will post again soon with a better response/questions once have recovered HDD.
Thanks again for great reply,
Bruce
#6
So you can say to yourself "well, I'm really good at learning languages and good at C++, so if I lean into it for a few weeks/months, I'll be fine". But no one else can make that determination for you.
The same can be said for what you regard as a complex game design. There are many very experienced programmers who completely overestimate their own abilities and/or underestimate what goes into a particular game design, to their detriment. And that's why the questions can't be posed to anyone other than the person posing them ;)
06/14/2009 (12:14 pm)
@Bruce: The questions were sort of rhetorical. The problem is that you can't really measure these things. Well, you can, sort of, but only because you know what you know.So you can say to yourself "well, I'm really good at learning languages and good at C++, so if I lean into it for a few weeks/months, I'll be fine". But no one else can make that determination for you.
The same can be said for what you regard as a complex game design. There are many very experienced programmers who completely overestimate their own abilities and/or underestimate what goes into a particular game design, to their detriment. And that's why the questions can't be posed to anyone other than the person posing them ;)
#7
So, you have -4 hours per night to dedicate to this. Awesome!
06/15/2009 (10:10 pm)
Quote:- Define how long those "evenings" are?
Working full time on PhD in Mobiles/Networking, trying to get reasonably early nights, have girl friend, currently building decking in back garden...
So, you have -4 hours per night to dedicate to this. Awesome!
#8
Seriously, always generally find some time, and as long as not on annual license will be good project..
(Have found the documentation pages, and seem to have lots of good info, so will look through these until have better understanding... many thanks) Bruce
06/16/2009 (11:59 pm)
Have considered this, and have carried out a time and motion analysis, believe that if multi-task whilst brushing teeth, eating dinner, riding bicycle home, and pleasuring girlfriend could bring it down to -0.5.. and the decking is nearly finished.. ;)Seriously, always generally find some time, and as long as not on annual license will be good project..
(Have found the documentation pages, and seem to have lots of good info, so will look through these until have better understanding... many thanks) Bruce
Torque 3D Owner Ted Southard
It's not really possible to answer that without answering these:
- How good of a coder are you?
- What is a "basic 3D RPG"?
- How fast can you learn Torque?
- Define how long those "evenings" are?
- And several other questions you'll need to ask once you've answered these.
Torque can definitely help you in your goal, but the engine is not an API, nor a snap-together "game builder", so there is no generic answer to that question. As for the other questions:
1) T3D has a GUI editor for placement of the elements, but for creating icons or other graphical elements, you will need a paint package.
2) The scripting language is exposed from the engine for fast prototyping. The engine itself is written in C++. People have integrated languages such as Python as scripting languages as well, but that's a non-trivial task.
3) No. The engine is a pure engine, though you can expose internal functions to script relatively easily.
4) Definitely. Buying the engine gives you access to the source code, so you can make any modifications that you have the expertise to make. You can implement new classes, AI, etc. Also, you can accomplish a great deal with the scripting language dealing with gameplay, GUI, and AI.
5) There are object selection resources that can be ported from previous versions to T3D, or you can look at how it's implemented in the editors. The engine is set up primarily as an FPS, so interactions with the terrain and between objects is through collisions which have script callbacks. There's a lot more to it than in this paragraph though, but again, the engine is an engine, not an API.
6) The tools are graphical editors for setting things like the GUI, terrain, and objects up. There is a scripting IDE named Torsion, which I personally recommend, as it helps me a lot. But you should be using a standard IDE like Visual Studio, etc for your coding.
7) Torsion as a scripting IDE is my personal preference. Paint Shop Pro (ancient, I know) for my graphics, Constructor is the standard BSP modeler for T3D. 3D apps are a matter of taste, and you're probably not a 3D modeler, so I won't confuse you with those ;)
8) It's compiled C++, so it's as optimized as you code it to be. Script is less optimized, due to the flexibility it affords you.
It's not a tool, it's an engine that you will need to use several tools in order to take proper advantage of. But that should not daunt you, since it's also extremely powerful once you get the hang of it.
Hope that helps.