As a beginner, what is your biggest hurdle so far?

#41 I think one of the biggest problems ive had is that to start creating script for my own game ive effectively had to disect the existing game, rather than follow a step by step this is how you do this kinda thing.

unless ive missed soemthing there isnt a doc containing brief descriptions of whats being done in each of the starter.fps .cs files - yes there are notes inside them but when you are looking for how to achieve something you dont necesarily know where to look.

Example - making the "apparent" terrain bigger - best way - make your player smaller - how? scale him down - in game.cs rather than the player.cs? - ok odd but ok - which bit to alter? - it isnt in there, add a scale "x x x" comment.

Another problem i had was getting answers if i couldnt find them in the docs anywhere - and this is the case a lot of times, theres that many docs that its hard to find stuff, ironic really.

Lastly id like to know the whole process of creating a player model in milkshape and getting it to work in torque

but hey its all learning , i will make my mogg one day.

#42 Where do i go to learn the overview about projectiles?

#43 I'd have to say that the art pipeline is the biggest hurdle. There's enough content out there among the resources to prototype most basic stuff, but when it comes time for custom stuff figuring out the content pipeline can be a real pain. I definitely like Matt's Shape3ds resource, allows you to drop 3ds shapes directly in through the editor, I think it was something that was badly needed and I hope it does make it into an official engine release. I wish it had been around during my first Torque project. At that time there were no Maya tools, all the artists were mainly familar with Maya. The pipeline eventually became Maya->Max->Torque, or Maya->Milkshape->Torque.

Michael's comment reminds me of a discussion I was having with someone once about Torque when I first got the engine. We were discussing how something worked, something that worked by default like networking or something. They asked me how it worked and I replied "Magic."

#44 @Glynn;This, may help. It doesn't specifically target the Ms3d player, well, sort of does....

#45 The thing that always got me was that the network layer seemed fragile. Little changes that seem harmless can make the engine blow up in unpredictable ways.

#46 I think intergrating the joystick resources at the moment and getting to use Win CVS as I know that the joystick commands are included in that version but they have just changed the CVS download configuration, but I have the books and they seem fairly straight foward to me

#47 For me, it would have to be lack of documentation, though since I have had the TGE for a few months, I am learning more as I go.

#48 I've never worked outside of basic C++ Console apps before, but thanks to TBE, had no problem jumping into the source and getting it compiled. The engine has soooo much stuff in it, that I've hardly used any docs in messing with it. Sometimes I look at resources to see how they do things, otherwise, I just look at the engine to see how something close to what I want to do is done. For people like me who learn by observing something already functional, this engine is great. It's been a few years, but I'm pretty sure I learned the script language and structure almost entirely this way too.

So ah... my... only hurdle so far has been my own lack of ability in being able to understand complex math and physics.

#49 For me, the biggest hurdle is a lack of step-by-step instructions on how to create a simple level from scratch (or however you would go about creating a level), put a player in it, and just walk around. I'm talking very basic, just a square room with a player in it or an empty outdoor level with a player in it.

Right now, I'm half way through the Finney book and the best I can tell, every game starts by copying some other game. If that true, then somewhere say: Step 1, copy the fps demo to a new area.

Torque needs a "hello world" tutorial level that should have me running my own "game" (a player in a level) within less than an hour. From there I can explore the areas of interest to me. I keep hearing about TDN but that simple of a tutorial is still not there.

Don

#50 Lack of money.... ;) No seriously, ART and lack of money. Nobody want's to work for free and I respect that (people got to eat...I know I do). However I have to thanks GG for giving away art (at that prices it is give away). It's not the art that my type of game requires but it's excelent for prototyping. Thanks to the community everything else it's easy to overcome...just keep asking questions...be annoying...oh man I will get banned ;)

#51 Have to agree with the documentation gripes. And although the Finney book is very helpful, it too assumes you know stuff that you might not. For example he starts yapping about ItemData or BasicShape::something_ or_ other, without any explanation of what Items or BasicShapes are, or what you use them for. Also example code sticks some stuff into Player.cs and yet when you get damage to your character the code is written into an Armour method or something. Why? I could understand if you were just damaging armour, but you damage your player there. But still, my basic question is what are all the basic classes in TGE and what are they used for?? I could live with sticking code into seemingly random .cs files if I knew the names and purpose of all the base classes I need to use.

There is a handy set of appendices in Finney's second book which show all of the script methods. We could do with the same for the base classes. Something very like the Java API docs for both the engine classes and the script methods. I've never come across more complete, accurate and easy to use documentation than the java API, and I've programmed for more than 20 years in just about every compilable or scripting language you can think of (that's not an "I think I'm a genius" sentence, just putting my documentation usage experience into context).

Also, having to buy two books to get moderately reasonable documentation for a product you've purchased really sucks. So I beg and grovel that any docs that come from the new doc project will be downloadable in pdf format or something, so that we can print them and view them offline. It's much easier (and more comfortable) to lie on the couch and read docs and scribble notes, than to try and read a text book online!

Anyway, back to reading Finney for me, three quarters of a book down and another one to go :-(

The reason the Java docs are so easy to use is because the class names and methods are all so consistent and easy to guess at. If the same isn't true for TGE then another format would be better

#52 I have to chime in here.

The docs arent lacking. You have the forums, how-to's, codes snippets, tge documentation, and the quickly expanding wiki to search for answers.

And if that doesn't work post on the forums. You usually get an answer within 24 hours.

Or jump on irc where there is always someone who can answer a question (I'm usually there as well)

THe docs aren't inadequate, your ability to find an answer is.

#53 "THe docs aren't inadequate, your ability to find an answer is."

Yer, right, I can't find the answer quickly and easily so the docs are good eh? I'm not getting drawn into a flame war, so take your copy of the engine and go and play with yourself. My last post on this topic, so rant away kiddo.

#54 "THe docs aren't inadequate, your ability to find an answer is."

Yer, right, I can't find the answer quickly and easily so the docs are good eh? I'm not getting drawn into a flame war, so take your copy of the engine and go and play with yourself. My last post on this topic, so rant away kiddo.

#55 Dave - What the heck? I'm not trying to insult you here. My comment was directed at several people.

Many people have been perfectly capable of finding answers to there issues. If you can't, don't blame the documentation, just try and figure out what they are doing differently.

You've been a member of these forums for 2 weeks. I can only assume you've owned the engine for as long. Don't expect to figure out the best course of action for finding an answer in such short an amount of time.

#56 Dave - Refreshing the screen, without navigating away and hten back, will cause you to double post. :)

#57 Chris, sorry if I took it personally, but if you read your reply again you will see it looks very much like you were responding to me. The problems of electronic communication strike again.

Thanks for the re-post tip, I left the page up to see if you replied but luckily only reloaded it once before I lost interest and went elsewhere :-)

With regard to the docs, I realise that I can find the answers to many questions in many places. In fact I've had a very helpful answer to a basic question on this forum, found out about the Finney books, read a load of online stuff whilst waiting for the books etc etc. But the point I (and others) are trying to make is that we don't want to have to spend time online to find out very basic and simple things about the software. That should be available as standard with the software, as it is with almost anything else you buy.

Strangely to me, there seems to be two camps regarding docs. One that says they are an essential part of professional software, and the other that seems to be happy to live without any docs and give themselves extra work for no reason. Never the twain shall meet it seems, it's almost like the religious wars over programming languages. I don't understand it at all.

Dave.

#58 Lol. Ya, I hear ya Dave. I tend to avoid those arguments.

I have tihs thread on notify, so I keep getting responses in my email. I just kept reading about doc issues. I chose to respond after hearing yours, but hte response was not directed at you (well, not just you ;)

I guess people can either learn to live with it or move to a different engine. But for the price and power of TGE, I'd probably stick with it.

:)

#59 Oh no, for the price and power it's worth the hassle. However people are trying to lessen the hassle by asking for better docs. I think that's where we're at at the moment. Whether *everyone* needs that is another question, but certainly looking at the number of posts in the forums there seems to be a majority that do. Would Ken Finney's book so popular otherwise?

No, I've tried two other game dev kits and neither match up to Torque, that's why I'm here and have effectively thrown away my money on the previous two. So lack of docs won't make me go away (at least soon), it's just more frustrating than it needs to be.

"Notify"..heh, I'll find my way around this place eventually :-)

Cheers,

Dave.

#60 :)

This is a terrific thread. I actually printed out and read this entire thread. All I can say is, "They really really understand my pain!" about being a total noob.

Some fantastic points and commonalities that I find through out. Great to hear about the TDN too! Go Adam Go!

I saw some possible flame wars that *may* have erupted but was very kindly muted with some patience and understanding from the members. This community is awesome! I rarely see that kind of insight and understanding in many forums I've frequented. Many typically take offense. Mind you, I'm not saying this is a Utopic forum, but it's tres cool for me.

For me, I find that you only know what you know...you know? And if you don't know, go and try find the answer. While this forum is very good and has gobs of information, I do find that it lacks a cohesiveness, since after all, it is comprised of sporadic posts and writings of several individuals. If I enter key words, it pulls up a bevy of info that may or may not related to what I would like to know. Then the sifting of info starts to happen. While fun, it generally takes me off to another link or thread which captures my interests. After a few clicks, I look up and it's been an hour sifting through information and I have forgotten what it was I was looking for. To me this is the charm and bane of Torque sometimes. The siren song of other ideas and what you can do is so tempting. Torque is a complex and charming beast of a program. I am hoping that the TDN will account for that. By the sounds of it and on first sneak peek, it seems to be headed that way.

Cheers, it's Friday!

My 0.02 cents.