Plan for MrPhil (Philip Ludington)
by MrPhil (Philip Ludington) · 02/28/2005 (3:03 pm) · 8 comments
So first a little 'update' as you'll noticed looking at my last plan I've played some with TGE but I never actually did all the tutorials in my plan. Why is that? Well, the game I really want to make isn't a FPS or RTS game. It is a TBS (that's Turn Based Strategy) so I need more of board game environment aka 2D. So I put TGE down and looked around for a better solution. Basically I didn't find it and started work on my own in C#. All the while banging away on it a tiny voice inside me was hoping T2D would be released and save me from the mountain of work it was going to take. So here we are and T2D came out Friday and I spent ALL weekend playing with it (neglecting chores and sleep the whole time.)
My conclusion? F making my own engine T2D is the supnizzel.
Tasks:
1. To the T2D tutorial (Done: Wow was it good.)
2. See how fast it takes to get theses tasks working in T2D
- a. Display sprite for each Star
- b. Display sprite for the fleet
- c. Zoom star field in and out
- d. Pan star field around by hovering mouse near the screen edge
Torque Script Editor So I've tried several editors for Torque Script:
EditPlus
UtlraEdit with AndyGFX's syntax highlighting
jEdit with TIDE
NotePad
Eclipse with TorqueEdit
To be tried
Brain Editor Professional
Crimson Editor
Jens' File Editor
ConTEXT
MultiEdit
SlickEdit
Vim
Emacs
Textpad
But they've all had something or other missing:
- braces matching with auto-indenting
- customizable colors
- debugging support
- syntax checking
- Intellisense (sometimes called auto complete)
- Function navigation quick-links
- Strong Find and Replace functionality
- Class Tree
- Project or Solution Navigator
I even started work on an extension to Visual Studio that was going well and hit a major road block. (see my post: Adding a new Torque Script Extension
Today it dawned on me it would be super awesome if the there was an editor integrated inside Torque just like the GUI editor, or Melv's Particle Editor! This would be awesome because:
- Cross platform
- Improved self-aware Intellisense
- Click on console error and it opens to the line in the script file
- Debugging IN the game!!!
- Add watches to variables while playing (maybe even value driven breakpoints)
- Makes things easier on new game developers (see how I didn't call them noobs... oooppsss)
So I'm tasking myself with exploring that possibility. Of course I'm biting off way more than I can chew, but that is my dreamer side and I try not to stifle him too much with reality. I mean it makes more sense to put the effort into Torque than say Visual Studio because then I'll understand my game engine better, right?
Game on,
MrPhil, Owner
Mr. Phil Games
Previous Plan Next Plan
My conclusion? F making my own engine T2D is the supnizzel.
Tasks:
1. To the T2D tutorial (Done: Wow was it good.)
2. See how fast it takes to get theses tasks working in T2D
- a. Display sprite for each Star
- b. Display sprite for the fleet
- c. Zoom star field in and out
- d. Pan star field around by hovering mouse near the screen edge
Torque Script Editor So I've tried several editors for Torque Script:
EditPlus
UtlraEdit with AndyGFX's syntax highlighting
jEdit with TIDE
NotePad
Eclipse with TorqueEdit
To be tried
Brain Editor Professional
Crimson Editor
Jens' File Editor
ConTEXT
MultiEdit
SlickEdit
Vim
Emacs
Textpad
But they've all had something or other missing:
- braces matching with auto-indenting
- customizable colors
- debugging support
- syntax checking
- Intellisense (sometimes called auto complete)
- Function navigation quick-links
- Strong Find and Replace functionality
- Class Tree
- Project or Solution Navigator
I even started work on an extension to Visual Studio that was going well and hit a major road block. (see my post: Adding a new Torque Script Extension
Today it dawned on me it would be super awesome if the there was an editor integrated inside Torque just like the GUI editor, or Melv's Particle Editor! This would be awesome because:
- Cross platform
- Improved self-aware Intellisense
- Click on console error and it opens to the line in the script file
- Debugging IN the game!!!
- Add watches to variables while playing (maybe even value driven breakpoints)
- Makes things easier on new game developers (see how I didn't call them noobs... oooppsss)
So I'm tasking myself with exploring that possibility. Of course I'm biting off way more than I can chew, but that is my dreamer side and I try not to stifle him too much with reality. I mean it makes more sense to put the effort into Torque than say Visual Studio because then I'll understand my game engine better, right?
Game on,
MrPhil, Owner
Mr. Phil Games
Previous Plan Next Plan
About the author
My name is Philip Ludington, I'm a professional programmer by day and I dabble in game development by night. Learn more about my projects at www.MrPhilGames.com
#3
Making editors are fun in a sick sort of way. They are also wayyyyy harder then a lot of people would think. Considering how open torque script is.
The only advice I can give you is to watch your search patterns. When you try to add things like intellisense it adds a lot of overhead since it has to cycle through a lot of code.
03/01/2005 (5:19 am)
Philip, have fun with it. Even though I am working on something with the same intentions, I doubt it will be cross platform for a while. Making editors are fun in a sick sort of way. They are also wayyyyy harder then a lot of people would think. Considering how open torque script is.
The only advice I can give you is to watch your search patterns. When you try to add things like intellisense it adds a lot of overhead since it has to cycle through a lot of code.
#4
@LabRat - what a large and overwhelming resource! Thanks, I tried looking around for stuff like that I guess I was just using the wrong words, oh well.
@Charlie - is your idea to make it on top of Torque too? Maybe we could collaborate?
03/01/2005 (8:57 am)
Thanks for the support guys!@LabRat - what a large and overwhelming resource! Thanks, I tried looking around for stuff like that I guess I was just using the wrong words, oh well.
@Charlie - is your idea to make it on top of Torque too? Maybe we could collaborate?
#5
There's a lot of:
Step 1: Write game design doc
Step 2: ?
Step 3: Profit
around here, but I personally don't believe that step 2 is:
"write an in-game editor"
If you're looking to get experience in torque by writing a small app first then an editor is most certainly not an efficent use of your time. May I suggest something completely off the wall like making a smaller game as a starting point?
Ian
03/01/2005 (2:07 pm)
Er...There's a lot of:
Step 1: Write game design doc
Step 2: ?
Step 3: Profit
around here, but I personally don't believe that step 2 is:
"write an in-game editor"
If you're looking to get experience in torque by writing a small app first then an editor is most certainly not an efficent use of your time. May I suggest something completely off the wall like making a smaller game as a starting point?
Ian
#6
03/01/2005 (2:44 pm)
I can't argue your logic Ian, but since I started work on the VS extension I might as well channel that energy into Torque don't you think? I'm definitely not making it my Step 2 that's for sure, more of a backburner kind of thing to break things up with. I
#7
Didn't mean to be too arsey in my post, apologies. I think however that it is a general problem around here that people start work on things like this and nothing comes out of it 99.9% of the time. Writing an editor is really hard work, and I think most people around here just use VS or something like TextPad for all file editing, and load up Tribal IDE when they need to debug.
On the other side, making a very, very small game has a load of advantages. Getting your head into "Torque Space" is a long and difficult process, and the sooner you start the better IMO. So I guess what I'm saying is that so many people waste their time in this area, I'd kind of like to point someone into not doing it.
Ian
03/02/2005 (7:37 am)
Hey Phil.Didn't mean to be too arsey in my post, apologies. I think however that it is a general problem around here that people start work on things like this and nothing comes out of it 99.9% of the time. Writing an editor is really hard work, and I think most people around here just use VS or something like TextPad for all file editing, and load up Tribal IDE when they need to debug.
On the other side, making a very, very small game has a load of advantages. Getting your head into "Torque Space" is a long and difficult process, and the sooner you start the better IMO. So I guess what I'm saying is that so many people waste their time in this area, I'd kind of like to point someone into not doing it.
Ian
#8
03/02/2005 (8:26 am)
Hey Ian, No apologies necessary. I think you have a very valid point and I 
Torque Owner Harold "LabRat" Brown
www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=4837