Seeing the light
by Ben Conrad Curley · 02/07/2007 (12:25 am) · 2 comments
Well this is my first ever blog, generally I don't feel compelled to write about what I have been doing, but that's mainly due to not having done much. However this time I feel I have something to shout about.
I owned the TGE indie licence now for nearly a couple of years, and through that period of time I have had an on and off again relationship with this wonderful piece of affordable technology. Time and again I have tried to understand the engine, by researching the forums and all available documentation and have quite often meet with frustration. This is more a reflection of my limited time and prolonged gaps between using torque and been a one man development team, than the quality of help available (if you look hard enough in the community).
Anyway step in GPGT, this poor book has so many bits of paper sticking out of it, and has never had the chance to sit next to its colleagues on my shelf. It has proven to be an excellent reference material, and has successfully given me that 'click' in my brain and now I see the light. If you felt like me then this book is for you period.
So onto my actual game, well its just a Capture the flag clone, I choose to do this mainly because I am very familiar with the game mechanics (aren't we all), and the fact that torque sdk has plenty of fps examples shipped with it. Using the blank canvas provide by GPGT I set about building a CTF game. Having read GPGT I used the simple inventory script system to allow for flag pickups and constraints. Studying the inventory system then allowed me to design my own CTFGame object in script. I was tempted at first to just use existing resources for team games, however I felt I would learn more by 'rolling my own'.
So I set about a global game object that kept track of clients placed them into 1 of 3 client groups red, blue and observer. The object also kept track of team scores and had dealt with its own creation and deletion. It also dealt with placing and controlling the flags in game. Then came the triggers, after a bit of muddling and realising that onTriggerTick method behaviours differently to most of the official documentation, I created flag capture areas. Linking this object up with messages between CTFGame object, Player Inventory system and trigger areas gave birth to a fully working CTF mechanic.
Now the score systems, having used my own CTFGame object, the team scoreboard resource wasn't as directly applicable. However it proved invaluable reference place and combined with GPGT that was quickly absorbed into the game.
Well that's enough chat, here are some pictures of the game (using stock assets).
I owned the TGE indie licence now for nearly a couple of years, and through that period of time I have had an on and off again relationship with this wonderful piece of affordable technology. Time and again I have tried to understand the engine, by researching the forums and all available documentation and have quite often meet with frustration. This is more a reflection of my limited time and prolonged gaps between using torque and been a one man development team, than the quality of help available (if you look hard enough in the community).
Anyway step in GPGT, this poor book has so many bits of paper sticking out of it, and has never had the chance to sit next to its colleagues on my shelf. It has proven to be an excellent reference material, and has successfully given me that 'click' in my brain and now I see the light. If you felt like me then this book is for you period.
So onto my actual game, well its just a Capture the flag clone, I choose to do this mainly because I am very familiar with the game mechanics (aren't we all), and the fact that torque sdk has plenty of fps examples shipped with it. Using the blank canvas provide by GPGT I set about building a CTF game. Having read GPGT I used the simple inventory script system to allow for flag pickups and constraints. Studying the inventory system then allowed me to design my own CTFGame object in script. I was tempted at first to just use existing resources for team games, however I felt I would learn more by 'rolling my own'.
So I set about a global game object that kept track of clients placed them into 1 of 3 client groups red, blue and observer. The object also kept track of team scores and had dealt with its own creation and deletion. It also dealt with placing and controlling the flags in game. Then came the triggers, after a bit of muddling and realising that onTriggerTick method behaviours differently to most of the official documentation, I created flag capture areas. Linking this object up with messages between CTFGame object, Player Inventory system and trigger areas gave birth to a fully working CTF mechanic.
Now the score systems, having used my own CTFGame object, the team scoreboard resource wasn't as directly applicable. However it proved invaluable reference place and combined with GPGT that was quickly absorbed into the game.
Well that's enough chat, here are some pictures of the game (using stock assets).
Associate Matt Fairfax
PopCap