A few general questions about itorque2d
by Tony Purrazzella · in iTorque 2D · 03/15/2012 (1:32 pm) · 3 replies
I could not find the answers to these questions so sorry if these have been answered.
I have not used torque in probably 4 years, back then using torque was always more headache then it was worth, my hope is that GG has come a long way since then.
I am interested in making a few 2d games for iphone and the thing that attracts me to torque is the visual level editor. For me being an 3d artist/graphic designer by trade this is very appealing to me over corona/unity(not true 2d). As it will cut out major programming/scripting, torque seems to be the best choice for "non programmers", would you all agree?
But i have a few questions, one is that everything seems to indicate itorque2d, out of the box, is only capable of making one level games? That just doesn't make sense to me, is there no level loading features that would allow you to load multiple levels in a single game?
The second is how much work is to launch the game to the app store, lets say i install the engine on my pc and a mac, but i do all the work on the pc is it just a matter of opening the project on the mac and then compiling? Or is there a lot of re-coding that needs to be done?
I have not used torque in probably 4 years, back then using torque was always more headache then it was worth, my hope is that GG has come a long way since then.
I am interested in making a few 2d games for iphone and the thing that attracts me to torque is the visual level editor. For me being an 3d artist/graphic designer by trade this is very appealing to me over corona/unity(not true 2d). As it will cut out major programming/scripting, torque seems to be the best choice for "non programmers", would you all agree?
But i have a few questions, one is that everything seems to indicate itorque2d, out of the box, is only capable of making one level games? That just doesn't make sense to me, is there no level loading features that would allow you to load multiple levels in a single game?
The second is how much work is to launch the game to the app store, lets say i install the engine on my pc and a mac, but i do all the work on the pc is it just a matter of opening the project on the mac and then compiling? Or is there a lot of re-coding that needs to be done?
#2
Thanks for all your information that is very helpful :).
I can usually find my way around scripts, i have another artist on board and a programming find of mine that I'm sure is going to join us.
I just wanted to make sure it was going to be able to do what i was planning before planning out further. I am really glad to hear that GG doing well, some of their new documentation is leaps and bounds better then what I'm used to. So overall I'm excited to give them another go, the programmer i have in mind is the same guy i worked with on an old torque 3d, and he is very familiar with torque script.
I am actually very familiar with macs, and have used xcode before, I'm not so good with obj c, or any heavy programming. I generally am a pc guy and do most all of my art on a pc, and i use a mac laptop for casual stuff.
Glad to hear about these levels i think what got me was "Create a single level that runs on all devices" on the features page, and i read a older review saying something similar, then i looked at all the apps i could find, and they all appeared to be one large level. LOL, anyway it didn't make sense to me, so i had to ask.
Thanks again for everything.
03/15/2012 (8:34 pm)
Haha thanks Ronny. Thanks for all your information that is very helpful :).
I can usually find my way around scripts, i have another artist on board and a programming find of mine that I'm sure is going to join us.
I just wanted to make sure it was going to be able to do what i was planning before planning out further. I am really glad to hear that GG doing well, some of their new documentation is leaps and bounds better then what I'm used to. So overall I'm excited to give them another go, the programmer i have in mind is the same guy i worked with on an old torque 3d, and he is very familiar with torque script.
I am actually very familiar with macs, and have used xcode before, I'm not so good with obj c, or any heavy programming. I generally am a pc guy and do most all of my art on a pc, and i use a mac laptop for casual stuff.
Glad to hear about these levels i think what got me was "Create a single level that runs on all devices" on the features page, and i read a older review saying something similar, then i looked at all the apps i could find, and they all appeared to be one large level. LOL, anyway it didn't make sense to me, so i had to ask.
Thanks again for everything.
#3
03/16/2012 (6:52 am)
@Tony - "Create a single level that runs on all devices". That meant the engine supports creating a level at an iPad resolution (1024x768) and it will scale properly when running on iPhone, iPod touch and iPhone 4. This applies to all levels you create. 
Torque 3D Owner Ronny Bangsund
Torque Cheerleaders
The 2D Torque engines are definitely the best combined package of features. I know they have big plans for them, and the only competition worth considering is either programming-heavy and/or makes use of 3rd party tools for major parts of the building. If you team up with a programmer who writes behaviours for you it's actually possible to only use the editor without even knowing about the code. But somebody has to make that initial glue that makes your game "go"!
App Store:
Do you know how to use a Mac? Are you familiar with Xcode? If you answered "yes" to both these questions you shouldn't have too much trouble getting a game compiled, signed, archived and submitted to Apple. Most of the work is done automatically by Xcode 4, including the boring provisioning and setting up profiles. You might still need to add your development device(s) to the developer website before this automation works, but that's the easy part. The IDE does the hard part if you have the developer certificates installed and the device registered. Building automatically signs, and you submit the app from within Xcode.
It's been so long since I did my initial setup, and Xcode has just made it easier for each revision. I can literally just download the latest iT2D, open an example, build and send to device. I just tested it to be sure; opened a pristine version of the engine and built an example which ran without me changing anything. Moving a project from a PC shouldn't be much more effort, but I use 100% Mac for iT2D stuff, so I can't tell if there are any gotchas. The important parts are the scripts, so just make sure they are recompiled for the correct engine (delete DSOs when moving files between systems).
If you are NOT familiar with Macs and/or Xcode you'll need to read up on a lot of things. Apple have recently added a nice getting started tutorial which covers everything from getting Xcode installed to submitting apps for the store. The developer site has everything you need to get answers to Xcode-specific issues, including active forums. For anything not Torque-related you'll usually get answers much faster there.