DTS support?

#1 T2D is running on a stripped down version of TGE, though you can drop T2D source into any 1.3 TGE sdk install without any ill effects. Currently the two don't interact together aside from the gui controls. T2D even has it's own seperate scenegraph.

Having looked through the code though, I don't see why it wouldn't be possible with some quick hacks, to draw 3D objects in a T2D scene. Not sure what the side effects would be of doing this though so over to you Melv.

#2 Matt, 25th post down http://www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=25922 Melv put a 3D char in the game..

#3 Sweet that is what I thought. Thanks guys I knew that this question would be answered before I got home. :)

#4 Does anyone have any pointers regarding putting dts models/animations in T2D, or how to drop/hack in the code from T3D?

#5 No disrespect intended guys, but it's a 2D engine. If you want 3D, use TGE :)

#6 Well using a dts as a sprite in a 2d game, or using the 2d scenegraph with 3d objects could make some interesting games. For example a 3d game with 2d gameplay.

#7 Then use T2D within TGE, not the otherway round I guess is where I'm going. It's already set up for it!

#8

Quote:With regards to your other question; it depends on what you mean by 3D interaction. If you're talking about rendering then no because the GUI controls are rendered discreetly by T3D. T2D can only be over/underlaid any other GUI controls, not intermix rendering, at least not stock. You can of course freely communicate any other information you want, even at the C++ level if you want. The majority of T2D is about the management and manipulation of the scenegraph, its objects and their state. It is possibly to develop a 3D object, using something like my fxRenderObject, that renders the fxSceneGraph2D. The core T2D object is a fxSceneObject2D and that contains all the goodies but the great thing is, it doesn't do any rendering so you can create new objects that do, and work in 3-space with the 2D layer being some Z in 3-space. Some of the stuff though just wouldn't fit or be appropriate and I'm not sure exactly the benefit of doing all this work.

It'd be much easier to develop 2D 3-space objects than try to convert T2D.

- Melv.

#9 I guess I'm not stating my opinion well, but guys--it's 3 days in to all of the awesome and amazing tech that Josh and Melv put together for the 2D engine...I guess I can see planning ahead and all, but wouldn't you say it's a bit early to try to do things that the engine wasn't really intended to do off the bat?

#10 I would definately agree with you Stephen...

right now you can fairly easily interact between TGE and T2D ... overlayed by one or the other... full 2d and 3d interaction at the rendering level isn't "needed"... it would open up different styles of games, but T2D just came out, so plenty to go on for a very long time :)

#11 I think having simple 3d support would be a awsome idea, just think of all the artistic style it would allow.

But it would not need full 3d suport or collisons like in TGE. Maybe a new dts loader would be a good idea for this. All you would need from the dts file is the 3d model, throw away all the collision stuff and use the bounds box to generate where the 2d collison box is going to be.

So this would be like any other object to the scengraph (using the 2d physics), except it won't be getting its info from an imagemap. Then allow you to trigger its animations. And of course it would not allow z depth, so all you can do is move it right, left, up and down. And to similate moveing towards or away from you, just scale it. Its datablock should have a variable for lighting, no direction, just brightness.

#12 The only way you'll get 3D objects in T2D is to integrate T2D with TGE or TSE. This is exceptionally simple (you copy the T2D directory into your TGE or TSE project and re-compile). The code to display a DTS shape inside a T2D world is very easy if you are working inside TGE / TSE. Since so many people are interested in doing this, we'll provide a resource that at least gets a DTS shape rendering in a T2D world (not sure if we'll do the whole bounding box collision thing yet) and explains how to do it in general. This won't come online for a while though, as there are many more important things to take care of for now.

#13 I think my gut level response to the whole idea was a reflection of how the RTS SK Community reacted in a general way to the release--a large portion of the audience wants to "undo" all of the things that the RTS SK did to the original TGE base so they can "get xxx back into RTS SK", without evaluating really what it was they wanted. For example, some folks wanted to get full physics back into the RTS-SK, without thinking about why the physics model was trimmed down (performance--when you have 500+ units on screen, you can't run full checks on each and every one).

In other words, what some RTS-SK members wanted was "TGE with 1,000's of units", instead of "RTS-SK". I'd just hate to see that here--T2D is possibly one of the best products ever seen at GG, but it can easily be diminished instead of enhanced by trying to squeeze back in all of the TGE features!

/soapbox off!

#14 Or you could just simulate it with lots of animation.
Just render your model to a image file. Render the next frame... Etc and use the imge files.

#15 I don't suppose there are any updates on the likelyhood of a resource that will get simple DTS shape rendering in T2D?

#16

Quote:
I don't suppose there are any updates on the likelyhood of a resource that will get simple DTS shape rendering in T2D?

.dts: Dynamix Three Space.

T2D: Torque Two D(imensional).

#17 Check out the custom scene object code (from Melv), integrate TGE and T2D. Utilize as necessary. I added a RE4-esque GUI to TGE. I had most of the inventory code done and had placeholder graphics. It took me a recompile to get it interacting correctly (note that I haven't done any network code at all).

If you get in and use the source, you can do it in a short time as well. I won't be creating pre-rendered games ala Final Fantasy VII or Resident Evil anytime soon, but then I don't really want to do that right now anyway.