Questions about TGE?
by Zen_Budha · in General Discussion · 03/30/2005 (12:20 pm) · 8 replies
Well me and my team are considering a move to TGE no doubt it's a good choice but i had some quick questions about some of TGE's capabilities.
Given proper LOD setup, and appropriate poly counts for the target machine. How well can Torque support large worlds? A good example would be Morrowind style worlds.
Basically I want to know is I've got this endless terrain, but if I start populating that terrain (properly) say various cities, random enemies, tree's, rocks, etc. Is torque going to choke and die? Or so long as I have good effecient LOD's setup and I'm not trying to render 20,000 polys at a given time can TGE handle such environments?
I'm going to assume for the next question that the answer is yes otherwise the next question is irrelevant. Is there a way to seperate interiors from exteriors like Morrowind does. Thus allowing me to use models for exteriors, and .bsp's for interiors?
This is also important for the above in order to keep everything running smoothly in large towns, by being able to section off various interiors, and simply load them upon entering.
Or is there another approach I am not seeing? Such as area flagged doors maybe? Where TGE will cull everything behind say a swinging door untill it is open, and then upon closing cull everything outside of it? (relative to the player).
Basically I have a very small team trying to develope a open ended RPG FPS that truely combines the action of FPS with the stats, and character development of a RPG. All in a completely open living world. Given that living world is an expression since I know no engine could be running AI for 100,000 entities at one time, and in truth Everything really vanishes when out of distance from the player, and does nothing untill the player comes back into range. Thus when the player can see the entity it appears to be doing whatever it's supposed t be doing.
I'm really hoping that even if it requires some C++ and a ton of Torquescript, that TGE is capable of such things. After downloading the new TGE demo I was (as was my team) blown away by what it is capable of. So even if I have to pay a programmer (I'm no C++ pro) I think it's worth it.
Plus I think it's very important that it not only be capable of running on slightly dated hardware, but that it can also be ported over to Mac, and Linux.
Given proper LOD setup, and appropriate poly counts for the target machine. How well can Torque support large worlds? A good example would be Morrowind style worlds.
Basically I want to know is I've got this endless terrain, but if I start populating that terrain (properly) say various cities, random enemies, tree's, rocks, etc. Is torque going to choke and die? Or so long as I have good effecient LOD's setup and I'm not trying to render 20,000 polys at a given time can TGE handle such environments?
I'm going to assume for the next question that the answer is yes otherwise the next question is irrelevant. Is there a way to seperate interiors from exteriors like Morrowind does. Thus allowing me to use models for exteriors, and .bsp's for interiors?
This is also important for the above in order to keep everything running smoothly in large towns, by being able to section off various interiors, and simply load them upon entering.
Or is there another approach I am not seeing? Such as area flagged doors maybe? Where TGE will cull everything behind say a swinging door untill it is open, and then upon closing cull everything outside of it? (relative to the player).
Basically I have a very small team trying to develope a open ended RPG FPS that truely combines the action of FPS with the stats, and character development of a RPG. All in a completely open living world. Given that living world is an expression since I know no engine could be running AI for 100,000 entities at one time, and in truth Everything really vanishes when out of distance from the player, and does nothing untill the player comes back into range. Thus when the player can see the entity it appears to be doing whatever it's supposed t be doing.
I'm really hoping that even if it requires some C++ and a ton of Torquescript, that TGE is capable of such things. After downloading the new TGE demo I was (as was my team) blown away by what it is capable of. So even if I have to pay a programmer (I'm no C++ pro) I think it's worth it.
Plus I think it's very important that it not only be capable of running on slightly dated hardware, but that it can also be ported over to Mac, and Linux.
About the author
#2
03/30/2005 (1:13 pm)
Speaking of which... TSE terrain... what milestone is it slated for? I was wanting to see a tech demo featuring it soon :P
#3
His last plan talks about it, and there have been some screenshots released recently as well.
03/30/2005 (3:41 pm)
Milestone 2. Ben Garney is taking an extremely well-deserved vacation at the moment, but terrain is the next milestone!His last plan talks about it, and there have been some screenshots released recently as well.
#4
Don't suppose you have any idea when non-shader fallback will be implemented per chance? (edit: as in any kind of ballpark estimate :P)
03/30/2005 (4:40 pm)
I saw the yacht screens a while back which showed off the terrain really well... really coming together very nicely.Don't suppose you have any idea when non-shader fallback will be implemented per chance? (edit: as in any kind of ballpark estimate :P)
#5
03/30/2005 (4:46 pm)
So the TSE terrain is endless, or no? Its going to be, but isnt yet?
#6
03/30/2005 (4:48 pm)
I think the bottom line is that there aren't limits to the size more so than it being endless. I think its something along the lines of multiple height maps put together, but as of yet, I have no idea how TSE actually handles terrain, hence Iv'e been crossing my fingers waiting for Milestone two for a long time now :P.
#7
Now I don't know about paging or how that works. Is it similar to the Morrowind loading style? Where the world is pretty endless but as you enter a new area all of the AI, creatures buildings, etc are spawned?
Basically you get a short loading pause as you enter the next area. I can see already that hiring a C++ programmer is going to be a must. I've already begun modelling static entities, and building structures and I haven't put a dent in the shear amount needed yet in order to have good variety.
Anyway thanks for the heads up on that. Perhaps I need to start with something much more simple like another idea I had for a Battlefield 1942 style multiplayer game set in a WWI setting yet with a different variety of game types, and style of play.
Not very original but would make a good 1st free game release for Torque perhaps. I say free as I doubt too many people would be interested in buying a Indie version of a pro-game. Regardless of it's differences in play style it would still get rolled up as a Battlefield 1942 clone.
Still though it's a smaller project that won't slam the budget for my larger ideas. Might be good (being free) as a means of getting known in the gaming world. Sorta get people waiting for what comes next.
Anyway got to running my fingers/mouth. Thanks for the info.
03/30/2005 (5:06 pm)
Well if a high end machine can hand 200 600 poly models on screen at once it'll definitely handle what I want it to do.Now I don't know about paging or how that works. Is it similar to the Morrowind loading style? Where the world is pretty endless but as you enter a new area all of the AI, creatures buildings, etc are spawned?
Basically you get a short loading pause as you enter the next area. I can see already that hiring a C++ programmer is going to be a must. I've already begun modelling static entities, and building structures and I haven't put a dent in the shear amount needed yet in order to have good variety.
Anyway thanks for the heads up on that. Perhaps I need to start with something much more simple like another idea I had for a Battlefield 1942 style multiplayer game set in a WWI setting yet with a different variety of game types, and style of play.
Not very original but would make a good 1st free game release for Torque perhaps. I say free as I doubt too many people would be interested in buying a Indie version of a pro-game. Regardless of it's differences in play style it would still get rolled up as a Battlefield 1942 clone.
Still though it's a smaller project that won't slam the budget for my larger ideas. Might be good (being free) as a means of getting known in the gaming world. Sorta get people waiting for what comes next.
Anyway got to running my fingers/mouth. Thanks for the info.
#8
Ben has been quoted here on the forums saying that the only limit on your terrain size in TSE will be your hard drive space. Obviously, it's the second milestone of an early release, so things are subject to change!
03/30/2005 (5:21 pm)
I can't give any technical specifics about TSE terrain, because I don't have any! I do know that the paging is specific to the terrain itself--paging of game objects will most likely need to be handled by each project's developers--but that is me as a community member guessing, not me as an associate implying any inside information at all.Ben has been quoted here on the forums saying that the only limit on your terrain size in TSE will be your hard drive space. Obviously, it's the second milestone of an early release, so things are subject to change!
Torque 3D Owner Stephen Zepp
You are going to want to also have some form of paging for your objects and such...putting 20,000 different game items into a single loop and polling each and every one every tick is going to affect performance.
Now, rendering wise, TGE as well as TSE does really well with lots and lots of polys. I've had 200 600 poly RTS units on screen at once, plus full terrain, all of the units running extremely simplistic AI at once, and got 50+ fps on a high end gamer's machine. You will need to design (not necessarily just code, although that is a part of it as well) for your target platform...what you allow the player to see in any one scene is just as important as to how much their graphics/cpu can handle. There are also techniques in the rendering world regarding advanced culling that TGE/TSE doesn't use, but a good programmer could implement.
TGE/TSE's interior system does exactly what you describe (portallizing the entrances/exits from interiors to exteriors, etc). It's one of the big strengths of interiors (along with others).