T2D updates coming soon

#1 (continued from previous post...)

SDK update - T2D SDK 1.1
Coming: next few weeks (hah. Not gonna paint us into any tighter corner than that, so don't ask! ;)

Changes: (big update)
-SceneObject editor! (first pass.. it'll be ugly, like the other editors right now, but it can be used to make sprites, etc. Woohoo! As with all the editors, we'll be improving this one over time)
-Packaging utility (no more need to handle public releases manually)
-More doco updates
-Another new demo and tutorial
-Bunch of othe minor updates

*Also, the T2D SDK 1.1 will introduce changes that will break some existing stuff. Sometimes this is unavoidable, with this update we're also doing stuff that will make it less likely for future breakage to occur. We are changing two things which will effect existing stuff: (also please read and see how easy we're making it to update old stuff)

-Classes will be renamed from fx[ClassName]2D to t2d[ClassName]. So, "fxStaticSprite2D" will become "t2dStaticSprite".

Please don't worry though, we will either a) release a utility that automatically converts your script code for you (this is pretty easy) or b) declare multiple class namespaces, so that you can still use "fx[ClassName]2D" and old scripts will still work. So, no need to worry about this one in terms of re-doing scripts or anything.

Overall, we just think "t2d[ClassName]" looks and sounds a lot better. We almost made this change before release, but we didn't quite have time. Plus, it's hard to give up Melv's trademark "fx" moniker, we're both fond of it. :) But we do want to make this change at some point, and it's better to do it earlier than later.

-T2D file formats (ie saved tilemaps and particle effects) will be changed. We are moving to a "chunk-file" system which will make it easier to update the versions of assets in the future. Old files (eg tilemaps) will not load in T2D 1.1... but again, please don't freak out. We are making this change so that we don't have to break backward compatibility support in the future. We need to keep adding to and extending the T2D objects, so we need an extensible file saving / loading system and format. We will have that with T2D 1.1, which means we shouldn't need to break saved assets again in the future. In any case, if you have a lot of currently saved tilemaps or particle effects, if enough people need it, we'll release a utility that loads the old formats and saves them in the new formats.

Again, please note that this kind of breakage won't happen often. We want to keep improving T2D all the time, and that sometimes means adding new functionality. New functionality is a great thing, it means T2D can do more stuff for you. :) Most of the time, adding new stuff doesn't mean old stuff gets broken. But sometimes its unavoidable.

When it is unavoidable, we will always be sensitive to backward compatibility or making it easy for you to convert your existing assets and scripts. So, we'll try to minimize the pain of updates. You can see from the plans for the T2D SDK 1.1, we're doing just that. And with the new T2D file formats, we'll be making it less likely that saved files will get broken in the future! :)

So, this is very good stuff overall. We just wanted to let you guys know what was coming, and especially let everyone know early about the changes. I hope you'll agree we're being extra careful here... warning about breaks early, avoiding them whenever possible, and making it as painless as we can for you when we do need to do an update that breaks old stuff.


I'm very excited about the new T2D releases! You guys are an awesome community, and Melv and I both can't wait to give you more cool stuff to play with. And of course, we're both zealots about killing bugs as soon as they come up... so we'll be doing many updates in the future. Onward toward making the best 2D engine on the planet! ;) it's been really great working with you all so far, and stay tuned for more details on the forthcoming updates.

#2 Huzzah!

This makes me happy. Thank you. Keep up the good work.

-Tim

#3 Thx for the update Josh... sounds great, love all the improvements

Quote:
-SceneObject editor! (first pass.. it'll be ugly, like the other editors right now, but it can be used to make sprites, etc. Woohoo! As with all the editors, we'll be improving this one over time)
-Packaging utility (no more need to handle public releases manually)

those two right there sound very cool !

#4 Yay!

~Chris

#5 Hot damn, you guys rock. :) I'm just about to explode from all the cream scones I ate in the hopes that it would accelerate the release, so the sooner the better. :-p

As for the tilemap incompatibility, all I can say is that I'm really glad I've been concentrating mainly on creating the art for them.

#6 Great news, looking forward to seeing the new demo and having a version with most of the current bugs fixed :)

#7 Man, i'm squirming in my seat at the thought of Torque 2D being better than it already is. Im PSYCHED!

#8 Melv and team have done it again-and so soon!:) Thanks so much guys!:)

#9 Can't wait. A couple of things that I hope come out of it are:
-the fishbowl demo- I really want to see how T2D does the dynamic lighting
-Hopefully a tutorial that handles more of the tile making process. As I am having a hard time figuring it all out. more so with making tilemaps that are bigger then what is viewed on screen at one time. I've read the doc from melv but for some reason I can't grasp some stuff.

Either way, I'm working on story now so all is good.

PS to Melv if he reads this:

Anyway we can ever get a hold of the old demo that you had that had the person riding the horse?

Another question:

I was going to make a gui that would create different projects so that the user can select a project that he wants to work on without having to copy and paste the example folder. Sort of how you can load different missions in TGE. Should I go ahead with this or are you guys planning to add some sort of project management into the engine itself?

I figure the answer will be no for now, but I just wanted to see before I spent any more time on it

#10 Fantastic!

#11 Charlie, as best I figure, I reckon the "dynamic lighting" was probably done via a chunked animated bitmap with the mode set for alpha blending. Of course, this is an educated guess not based on actually seeing it in action.

#12 Teck

Quote:
Torque 2D Fish Bowl Tech Demo

While this may seem like a nice screensaver, the fish bowl tech demo showcases the advanced particle effects, dynamic lighting abilities and seamless texture blending functionalities build into Torque 2D.

So I really don't know

#13 Oooh. Color me stupid, then. :-p Looking forward to that fishbowl demo now. :)

#14 Oh hey about that thing where you can't select DirectX. Hopefully that will be in the fix.

#15 Sweet!!!
I can't wait.

Bob

#16 Randy, in case you don't about the fix, you take the two other .dll's from the shooter and put them in your project or you can just recompile and they will be there and it will work

#17 You know, another thing I was thinking about:

With the break in code, is there going to be any forum clean up? There are some great posts inter-mingled within posts on some of the things that are going to change.
So I guess I am wondering if these posts will be removed to clear up confusion. Or will they be edited to reflect on changes to the engine?

#18 Sounds great :)
Not sure if I'd prefer the checkers or fish bowl demo... so I'll just waut to see which demo it is and complain it wasn't the other one , heh ;)

#19 I doubt we'll edit the forums, that's not standard practice really. Besides, there's thousands of post! :)

- Melv.

#20 Creating categories for "C++", "TorqueScript", and "Art & Sound" would be nice, though.. instead of mushing it all together in one huge forum. :)