Tse for a potential project
by Paul Fassett · in Torque Game Engine Advanced · 06/16/2005 (1:06 pm) · 5 replies
I posted this on the general boards and the forums police told me to pack up my balls and leave. So I came here as it seems appropriate.
Ok so I have a team that is hard at work with a gameplay demo we hope to finish in about 5 months, we are currently using TGE and I am getting ready to buy some licenses of TSE but I wanted to ask a few questions which I am sure have been answered 108423987529387'109371284627345 times, but it's a big decision and I want to make sure I make the right one.
Shader implementation:
1. Is there any coding/scripting required to use a shader?
2. How do you implement a shader? Is it done through the modeling program like max with the different materials? Is it added in game?
3. Have there been any improvements to the tools already in TGE?
4. Will we need to recode any of our scripts/cpp files to implement the shader engine?
Will it be worth it:
1. How does TSE out of the box (NO LIGHTING PACKS!!) handle shading of shadows on a dts? Do DTS shapes now cast shadows and can shadows be cast on them.
2. Can you control the thickness of a shadow easily? If so how is it done.
3. How good are the shaders compared to lets say Radiant engine? Am I calling it by the right name?
4. I'm an artist with only minimal coding experience. Will I have trouble implementing the engine, and once it's implemented will I have trouble getting a shader to work.
5. How many layers are availiable? 4? 16?
6. I saw that you guys made signifigant changes in milestone 2 to the terrain engine. Will you be making similar changes to the collision code? Will there be a time when we can use MAX or MAYA interiors and exteriors without using .map or .dif format?
Forgive me if this post seems a bit uninformed. As thats the reason I am posting this. I have read alot about the engine but I wanted to hear some storys straight from people who have used it.
Ok so I have a team that is hard at work with a gameplay demo we hope to finish in about 5 months, we are currently using TGE and I am getting ready to buy some licenses of TSE but I wanted to ask a few questions which I am sure have been answered 108423987529387'109371284627345 times, but it's a big decision and I want to make sure I make the right one.
Shader implementation:
1. Is there any coding/scripting required to use a shader?
2. How do you implement a shader? Is it done through the modeling program like max with the different materials? Is it added in game?
3. Have there been any improvements to the tools already in TGE?
4. Will we need to recode any of our scripts/cpp files to implement the shader engine?
Will it be worth it:
1. How does TSE out of the box (NO LIGHTING PACKS!!) handle shading of shadows on a dts? Do DTS shapes now cast shadows and can shadows be cast on them.
2. Can you control the thickness of a shadow easily? If so how is it done.
3. How good are the shaders compared to lets say Radiant engine? Am I calling it by the right name?
4. I'm an artist with only minimal coding experience. Will I have trouble implementing the engine, and once it's implemented will I have trouble getting a shader to work.
5. How many layers are availiable? 4? 16?
6. I saw that you guys made signifigant changes in milestone 2 to the terrain engine. Will you be making similar changes to the collision code? Will there be a time when we can use MAX or MAYA interiors and exteriors without using .map or .dif format?
Forgive me if this post seems a bit uninformed. As thats the reason I am posting this. I have read alot about the engine but I wanted to hear some storys straight from people who have used it.
#2
06/17/2005 (5:33 am)
Ok thanks for the excelent answers. So will the shader engine be implementing shadows and better collision in the future?
#3
06/17/2005 (6:38 am)
Shaders will be implemented in Milestone 5
#4
06/27/2005 (7:02 am)
I think he meant "shadows" will be implemented in Milestone 5---and honestly, it's before that! I'm not 100% certain of the most current milestone list, but there is no longer a milestone 5--4 is the current last MS.
#5
thats new to me :)
i just saw that TSE Roadmap got updated silently... but it still shows MS 2 as not yet completed...
http://www.garagegames.com/mg/projects/tse/
EDIT: http://www.garagegames.com/products/28 doesnt show Terrain and water beeing finished either
06/27/2005 (7:31 am)
Quote:
I think he meant "shadows" will be implemented in Milestone 5---and honestly, it's before that! I'm not 100% certain of the most current milestone list, but there is no longer a milestone 5--4 is the current last MS.
thats new to me :)
i just saw that TSE Roadmap got updated silently... but it still shows MS 2 as not yet completed...
http://www.garagegames.com/mg/projects/tse/
EDIT: http://www.garagegames.com/products/28 doesnt show Terrain and water beeing finished either
Torque Owner Kevin Johnson
1. ATM shaders are specified in Material & customMaterial Datablocks
2. I personally start with a procedural texture (TSE makes these for you at runtime), then use a text editor to tweak, then check in game, repeat
3. no tool updates atm
4. If it touches the render code yes.. if not then the damage will be minimal, and as for scripts there shouldnt be alot of differences. (we are re using about 80% of our tge script code)
Will it be worth it:
1. no shadows at all, although some teams have implimented them (but none have released anything)
2. see #1
3. HLSL is HLSL no matter what engine you use.
4. for an artist TSE is prolly not ready for you yet..
5. that would depend on your graphics hardware
6. some one else will need to answer this one but there is a rewrite of map2dif in the works (not to mention Torque pipeline for cartshop and the forthcomming torque constructor)
TSE is great if you've got some coders on your team to impliment what you need. But from an artist only standpoint it may not be ready for you.. ATM