Just bought the SDK and... well... SDK it aint...

#81 @Gonzo: from what I understand, that concept (being "certified" in Torque) has been discussed in the past--no idea if it was just talk, or if there will be anything coming from it in the future.

Also, regarding Pat's comment about "bringing people up to Torque", I think that he meant providing an educational pipeline, similar to the concept of an art asset pipeline, where GG provides a cascading set of products that become "more complex", resulting in TGE/TSE. They've started this with the direction Torque 2D is taking--it's aiming at giving the ability to be totally script based, with no knowledge of compilation, build environments, or anything but the T2D application itself required.

They are also approaching it by providing directly supported and "taught" simplistic tools like the Torque Build Environment--with the aim being that brand new developers of any background can move along the complexity scale and learn appropriate background skills as they go, culiminating in being able to use TGE to it's fullest. That's just my take based on various threads and conversations, but it sounds like a good plan to me!

#82 Heh, this is a great thread.

I think it's funny that people compare API's to engines. They look at Torque and say "But--but it's so complicated! It's so intertwined! It's so hopelessly connected!"

And you just rock back on your heels and go "hawh?" Because on the one hand, they're wrong -- it's very well-arranged code, by and large, and the massive jobs it undertakes in the areas of terrain and networking are truly stunning. But what irritates them is that they can't look at it and see exactly what the underlying problem is that a particular peice of code is solving.

Well . . . look . . . that's WHY Torque exists. To guys like the original poster, I just have to say -- you've had some experience with massive software projects, right? Well, games are massive fucking software projects. To make a single game work, you've got to pull together all kinds of brilliance from all over the world, and gorge yourself the brilliance of others, and use every bit of coder cunning you have.

But if all of that work is for ONE GAME, well, you're going to have a heart attack in approximately three two one NOW, because you can't keep something like a GAME going on gonzo programming.

'Datablocks', the deeply integrated terrain code, the need for rendering that works fine for massive outdoor scenes and indoor, on any kind of hardware, managing instances of objects spread out across 100 computers . . . you want to write that shit yourself? I guarantee, just the task of a networked 16-player game that scales well enough to keep you from having a heart attack -- that is just completely out of the question for any reasonable, small-scale, coded-in-your-spare-time project. It's not feasible.

Managing all of these disparate API's . . . forget it. You can get some great stuff for free at junkyards, including a lot of mint parts, but you aren't going to get a working, triple-A racer.

#83 All I have to say is that this thread, besides taking FOREVER to pull down on my 28.8 connection, has been the most enlightening thread I've read since I started prying apart Torque. It condenses Torque down to everything important and simultaneously (through the heated posts closer to the top) provides links to a lot of torque resources that haven't seen the light of day for a few years.

In response to Luc, you said...

Quote:They look at Torque and say "But--but it's so complicated! It's so intertwined! It's so hopelessly connected!"

For some people, the whole "Its so complicated" bit is the truth! Some people have had small scale programming experience, using very basic things like Transcript to put together small scale projects. I, for one, have had moderate experience with projects spanning from Kiosk like projects to full blown simulation controls that emulate the experience of space travel down to the last physical and software detail. When I researched and looked into Torque and decided to purchase it, I had only scratched the surface of the engine (That was after dissecting many of the availible resources, the demos, reading materials, etc.). Initially, I was overwhelmed at the size and scope of the project and not only what it could do, but actually how it worked. The demo does have a few fuzzy lines between engine and scripting, which are confusing for anybody just jumping in..

#84 I'm very new to Torque but very old to programming (old git basically!). I have released a few commercial games and apps over the past few years but wanted that bit more power from my engine - and lets be honest, there is no way 1 man ca write an engine these days on his own thats half decent - and still be young enough to use it when it's finished.

I spent 3 weeks carefully looking at all the engine's available. Some were just 3d engines (not what i wanted - i was after a complete game engine) some were just not quite frankly not up to the job.

I picked Torque because it is quite clearly very powerfull, the demos show it off well and the amount of documentation is quite substantial. The scripting engine is a bonus not a negative - all you need do is allow yourself to think a bit different. Look at games like UT2004 - the artists make the levels and code them with script, even the title "The way games are meant to be played" sequence is a script. Look at GTA3 - ok it was Renderware, but 100% script. The beauty of Torque is you can instantly have a moddable game with no real effort, you can quickly get a prototype up and running with nothing but script - and then decided which elements (if any) need to be written in c++ for that extra speed.

Tim - if your still around, don't be discouraged. Yes, Torque can seem "different" at first - but different is not always a bad thing! It works a lot like some of the extremely expensive engines - that can only be a good thing! You may feel a little attacked but remember you did start out fairly aggressively yourself - and these people are passionate about Torque so don't be put off by it. I have been on the scene only a shot time but have found this to be a very nice community - friendly, helpfull, approachable.

There is a nice book you can pick up called "3D Game Programming All In One" which is a great place to start off - and will make you appreciate more about how the engine works and fits together.

Hope to see you around Tim - and I'm sure everyone else here does too.

#85 Wow! This is the best thread about Torque that I've found!

I'm only starting to understand Torque. I bought it last week. I see that it has a lot of power and allows me to focus on game matters, rather than developing redundant game middle-ware infrastructure.

Regardless of how "well organized" Torque may seem to the initiated, it is a HUGE MESS to the newcomer. (a huge mess) Even with the multitude of half-written Torque docs and tutorials, there seems to be no easy entry point to learning Torque. Modifying the examples seems the only way to begin, even though the first thing that I'm trying to do is to elliminate everything in the examples that I don't need. (hasn't someone already done that?) I am bastardizing the examples to try and get a prototype hacked together. This isn't a very fun way to begin.

I wish it were cleaner. Perhaps soon I will be able to appreciate phrases such as "the beauty of Torque," but right now I just see a huge mess.

This isn't a rant, only an honest perspective from a newcomer.

#86 There is a series of 4 resources created a while ago by John Vanderbeck (based on a stripped down TGE environment created by James Yong) that talks about setting up the minimum required for a base level environment in TGE:

MinApp Tutorial #1

These tutorials (there are 4) are probably found the easiest by using the official (online) TGE documentation, in the tutorials section (roughly half way down):

Torque Tutorials

DISCLAIMERS:

1) Please realize that by stripping down all the supplied initial functionality of TGE, ultimately you are causing yourself a ton more work, because you'll simply find yourself adding all (or most) of it back in. In fact, the 4 tutorials consist of exactly that: adding functionality back in to TGE that the stripped down environment removed.

2) I haven't used any of the 5 resources myself--so I can't give any positive or negative feedback of any sort on using them.

#87 I too have just purchased Torque and wholeheartedly agree with Susan. Those of you who have been working with Torque for some time and are comfortable with this web site (which needs work in terms of navigation for finding resources more efficiently) and with the Torque engine and all that comes with it you may not remember what it was like seeing Torque for the first time. Actually, maybe it was worse in terms of lack of documentation and such!

From the perspective of a new client who has just purchased the engine the "entry point" could use some improvement. I'm sure it has improved from the intial post a year ago. And I thank Tim for having the courage to state his concerns. It looks to me, having read every single post since then, that it has produced useful results in tutorials, samples, and other resources.

Having said that, I wanted a commercial-based engine to start with. I am a member of the GameInstitute and it has helped me with understanding bits and pieces of a very large venture called game programming. But seeing how far I needed to go to "finish" (software is never done!) an engine was quite overwhelming. I want to create an end produce (Game!) while at the same time have complete control over (and own) the source code. So, really, you can't beat the price. Actually I thought I was going to get much less than I did in Torque.

I DO plan to continue to learn Torque with whatever resources are available to me. Thank you everybody who provided good, non-sarcastic, useful responses in this thread.

-SJ

#88 Hang it there. It has ben a steep learning curve and continues to be so. I am one of what I think is a fairly large group of TGE users who writes code in other languages, knows how to use VC++ reasonably well and don't always find the TGE resources easy to decipher.

I think GG has reached a tipping point and with just a few more tweaks it will be easier enough for a knowledgable, but not expert user to write a game using the engine(s).

Certainly get the book 3D Game programming All in One.

My recommendations for what to do on the tech side:

- Work with the RTS & Lighting Pack folks to get a product that has 1.4 TGE engine code, the RTS Package and LightingPack in one download. The same for the TSE. There is no reason I should be spending hours manually jamming them together when I, and others would gladly pay for a bug free download of the whole thing.

- Another bundle with sound, and DiviX for cut scenes woud be something that would move like hotcakes. I know: I own TGE, TSE, RTS, and the LightingPack. I'm ready to buy more. As long as the whole system stays under $1,000 it's a steal.

- I was about to buy the Cartography Shop when I heard about your new design tool. Keep it coming, I'll buy anything that makes designing games easier.

- Keep the Hello World level demos coming. You have no idea how helpful it will be to everyone who picks up TGE as a result of last week's Game Developer's Conference to see how things are built from the ground up: Load a background with a quit button, then add flat ground with grass, a light, then a building, a moveable character, and finally some music. Those five demos should be in every download of TGE. It's always been a finished demo you had to strip things out of, instead of a foundation and a few simple additions that show how to do what virtually every newbie would be delighted with.

- The content packs are great. If you want to sell a bunch of them, show a newbie how to add a castle that he or she can run his avatar around in. Or how to add a coupe of dune buggies so they can play their own version of GTA for hours.

You get the idea.

GG is on the right track and doing better than ever. You finally have all the tools I need, just don't make me go to the forums to figure out how to use them if at all possible. If it's something to compie I want to unzip it, open the project file and compile it, no errors right now. I don't want to dig through two months of discussion to find hwhy something I BOUGHT doesn't work. I'll do that for hours with Open Source stuff, but when I plunk down my coin I want it to work. Period.

Congrats to Jeff and all the staff. Another fine year of achievements.


r.b.

#89 @Richard: Some really good comments in there about packaging and marketing. I know that the concern has been discussed a couple of times, and if you think about it, it can be very difficult to package an installer for every single possible combination of packs you can buy.

That being said, I still think it is possible to write a scripted environment that will prep a new installer for a bunch of different combinations of the packs, and as we get more packs released, it only becomes more important.

One other thing--there is a fine line regarding the packs, because some/many of the errors that customers have wind up being with their own code on top of a pack or stock, and them improperly merging in a new pack. This certainly isn't -always- the case, but it does happen more often than not, and there isn't much GG can really do about that...nor can the afford to try. It's an interesting problem, and one I've been thinking about myself for quite a while.

#90 Agreed. Do it where the product matchup makes sense. Also, but doing the combination yourselves you can tune up the demos so they show both products in the best light to increase sales.

TGE and its associated products need to move beyond the 'if it's broke come help us fix it stage.' That's where you needed to be, now you need to facilitate the best use of your software by the maximum number of people.

That means documentation, demos, tutorials and support as much as is feasible. Cross marketing too. Why is the Orge and that little village in my TGE 1.3 download instead of a knight in a prefab castle and an offer to buy more content packs at a discount?

#91

Quote: Keep the Hello World level demos coming. You have no idea how helpful it will be to everyone who picks up TGE as a result of last week's Game Developer's Conference to see how things are built from the ground up: Load a background with a quit button, then add flat ground with grass, a light, then a building, a moveable character, and finally some music. Those five demos should be in every download of TGE. It's always been a finished demo you had to strip things out of, instead of a foundation and a few simple additions that show how to do what virtually every newbie would be delighted with.

I think this is an incredibly good suggestion Richard. GG take note.

#92 Here's how you do it right. The subject is OpenGL:

http://nehe.gamedev.net/

#93 Where are these Hello World demos?
are they available already?

Just bought the SDK, so looking through documentation and tutorials right now
Thanks

#94 >Where are these Hello World demos?
>are they available already?

I rest my case for putting Hello World demos in the TGE download.

#95 BTW, I've loaded up the tutorial.base and what missing? Er... and actual tutorial. Code is not a tutorial.

#96 Tutorial base is the software base that is used for working through the tutorials. It is not a tutorial itself. Go to www.codesampler.com/torque
The first item listed is the base (tutorial.base). After that comes actual tutorials that use the base. They are numbered and the site maintainer recommends doing them in order.

Edit:
Apparently Garage Games also has a tutorial.base, which is not the same as Codesampler's tutorial.base. The same idea applies though. Tutorial.base is a stripped down version of Torque which is used as a base off of which to build tutorials. By the way, I highly recommend Codesampler for new Torque users.

#97 Thanks I'll check it out.

However as an enduser it is not too far fetched to have an expectation that if something in a package I buy says tutorial there will be one in there.

#98 Where does it say in the product description that tutorials are included in the download? I've seen links to tutorial pages, but no mention of them being included with TGE itself.

#99 I think Richard's point is that a normal or new person is going to see the word 'tutorial' and expect the download to come with it, not be 'hiding' somewhere else.

#100 If that is the case, then I fail to see how GG can be expected to be responsible for assumptions made by those who don't read the product description, the introductory email sent after purchase and/or don't follow obvious links on the site.

Yes, I would love there to be more documentation and resources available, but GG have provided multiple methods for end users to help out with that so they can concentrate on improving existing products and creating new ones.