Some general questions before parting with my $
by Darryl Bartlett · in Torque Game Engine · 10/13/2003 (3:43 am) · 1 replies
Hi guys,
I just downloaded the Torque demo and I have to say that I am impressed with what I see. I have messed around with 2d games in the past and I work every day using programming language such as C, Visual Basic and Delphi so programming is not an issue to me. So, now it time for me to plunge into 3d and the Torque engine and its suite of tools seems the perfect way to go about it. I think playing around with the terrain editor - following the excellent tutorial produced by Devon Ly - and external programs like Worldcraft/Hammer to learn new skills will be fun. So, as you may have guessed I will be using Torque in a educational/hobbyist capacity.
Lets just say that art is not my strong point (boy, is that the understatement of the year!!). I have noticed that there are websites where I can download 3d models in formats such as MDL, MD2 etc. So for learning purposes, can I import these models into Milkshape and use the Torque exporter to put them into a format handled by the Torque game engine? Does the Milkshape -> Torque exporter handle animations? Looking in the directories generated for the Torque demo, it seems each animation type of the orc-like creature model used throughout the demo is a separate Torque file i.e. model idle, model saluting, model walking etc. Is this what the Milkshape -> Torque exporter produces?
Also, from hunting around the web, I noticed there are quite a few full levels and prefabs you can download for Half Life. Again for learning purposes and to get me started, can I downloaded these and place them straight into a Torque level/world? Also, how does the Torque engine handle textures. Obviously, Half Life itself stores its textures in one big file - which I have been lead to believe is just like a zip archive. Does Torque handle such texture archives (which can be manipulated using Wally and/or Pakscape) or does each texture used in the Worldcraft/Hammer level have to be saved as an individual file?
My next question is more to do with licensing. I read that the engine runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. If I understand the license agreement correctly, the license is per programmer? So, if I pay my $100 does that mean I am free to use it under both a Linux and Windows installation if a) Windows and Linux are on the same machine and b) if Windows and Linux are on different machines?
One final question, apart from Visual C++ (to compile the engine), Milkshape 3d and Worldcraft/Hammer, are there any other tools you would recommend taking a look at to help me get started?
Thanks for any help you can give me.
Regards,
Daz.
I just downloaded the Torque demo and I have to say that I am impressed with what I see. I have messed around with 2d games in the past and I work every day using programming language such as C, Visual Basic and Delphi so programming is not an issue to me. So, now it time for me to plunge into 3d and the Torque engine and its suite of tools seems the perfect way to go about it. I think playing around with the terrain editor - following the excellent tutorial produced by Devon Ly - and external programs like Worldcraft/Hammer to learn new skills will be fun. So, as you may have guessed I will be using Torque in a educational/hobbyist capacity.
Lets just say that art is not my strong point (boy, is that the understatement of the year!!). I have noticed that there are websites where I can download 3d models in formats such as MDL, MD2 etc. So for learning purposes, can I import these models into Milkshape and use the Torque exporter to put them into a format handled by the Torque game engine? Does the Milkshape -> Torque exporter handle animations? Looking in the directories generated for the Torque demo, it seems each animation type of the orc-like creature model used throughout the demo is a separate Torque file i.e. model idle, model saluting, model walking etc. Is this what the Milkshape -> Torque exporter produces?
Also, from hunting around the web, I noticed there are quite a few full levels and prefabs you can download for Half Life. Again for learning purposes and to get me started, can I downloaded these and place them straight into a Torque level/world? Also, how does the Torque engine handle textures. Obviously, Half Life itself stores its textures in one big file - which I have been lead to believe is just like a zip archive. Does Torque handle such texture archives (which can be manipulated using Wally and/or Pakscape) or does each texture used in the Worldcraft/Hammer level have to be saved as an individual file?
My next question is more to do with licensing. I read that the engine runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. If I understand the license agreement correctly, the license is per programmer? So, if I pay my $100 does that mean I am free to use it under both a Linux and Windows installation if a) Windows and Linux are on the same machine and b) if Windows and Linux are on different machines?
One final question, apart from Visual C++ (to compile the engine), Milkshape 3d and Worldcraft/Hammer, are there any other tools you would recommend taking a look at to help me get started?
Thanks for any help you can give me.
Regards,
Daz.
Torque 3D Owner Xavier "eXoDuS" Amado
Default Studio Name
The milkshape exporter doesn't support .dsq files for animations, so you would need to either use the already done animations (as long as you keep the bone structure the same they'll work) or you will have to use 3dsmax to do them. Or you could export animations with milkshape as vertex animations directly into the .dts file, but that's not recommended.
Torque doesn't use .wad files for it's textures, but you will need the .wad files in order to load the textures into WorldCraft, but the TGE will read the files directly from the drive in the directory levels *under* the .dif file. (dif file is the interior you make with WorldCraft and then export with the utility called map2dif).