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

#61 All this talk about doumentation is moot if GarageGames, the company, isn't providing the document for the Scripting API anywhere. The whole idea of Torque, "changing the way games are made and played", is to be able to use the TGE through the script interface w/o knowing much if anything about the engine internals. I'm not referring to Ken Finney's book here, I'm talking about what GarageGames provides to its customers. I know I tried to find it the other day using the documentation link provided and wound up at a broken appendix which purported to be the Console Functions documentation but only supplied the first page containing some audio functions. As developers we live and die by API docs, both for answering specific questions and expanding our awareness of the potential of the software. I'm still surprised that my comments about this on the forum the other day didn't draw any constructive response from a GG member other to say it is migrating. Migration impies that it exists. If it exists it should be accessible, even while "migrating". LOL

I haven't revisited that link to be sure I traversed it correctly but I'm certainly as good as any noob would be at that and didn't find it on the first or second try.

Ok, lock, load and fire at will.

#62 @ Don Leuenberger

I totally agree with you Don, the biggest hurdle is a lack of step-by-step instructions on how to create simple levels from scratch... it may seem obvious to people with programming/game dev knowledge but I'm from a design background so stuff like step-by-step tutorials would be life savers

#63 Don and others...I felt like I was in the same boat until I found a few really helpful resources:

The Basic GUI Demo
The MinApp Tutorials (starting with #1)
The Super Simple Torque Demo

These were great for me because they really strip away everything to the very simplest, most basic app. I just started with the Basic GUI Demo and traced the scripts through, figuring out what each did. It really helped to understand the script structure, the file structure, and game structure. Then you can just build from there.

I think that it would be nice to have been directed there as a starting point. I think Ken's book starts simply enough but around Chapter 4 it accelerates a bit too fast without enough explanations.

#64 @Rubes

thanks for pointing those out resource out, they are really useful. As you say it would have been nice to have been directed to them as a starting point.

I have both of Ken Finney's books and have found them to be a valuable resource, however I wish that they were a bit more generic, as a big section of the books seems to deal with fps.. altho it seems that what a big majority of people are building... I should think at some stage I'll try my hand at one :)

#65 Ahh, but you are. The problem is, no one actually reads the documentation ;)

The very first thing that happens after installing TGE is that a web browser is opened up, giving you the (local to your computer) ReadMe.html page, which gives links to all of the online documentation.

Linked from this page, are pretty much every single thing that has been asked for above, with a few minor exceptions, as well as the FAQ, which include answers to many of the questions that people new to Torque ask.

How many people here closed that window without even glancing at it, and haven't been back to the TGE Home Page or the FAQ page (not to mention the dOxygen documentation) since?

And also keep in mind that we are providing an additional source of information with TDN

#66 Ooh, those resources look nice. =P

#67 My thought about documentation...
I have been watching this thread since I started it in July... there has been lots of improvements done with the documention. GarageGames has been working hard to get TDN up and running. When TGE 1.4 gets released, you will see allot more documention come out. Plus "Essential Guide to Torque" by Edward Maurina should be comming out after TGE 1.4 is released. For a lite version try this link: www.garagegames.com/mg/projects/tge/ it's in the section "Getting Started with Torque".

I also recommend noobs to check out the videos on this site: torque.smdlabs.com/freeTutorials.htm lots of great info.

My thought about my biggest hurdle...
I have to say my biggest hurdles is motivation and confusion. I had the motivation but lost it when I got confused on where to start. Lets take the confusion part first.

Confusion...
Yes there is a "Getting started" which I followed, and the tutorials I went through. But when I started out 3 yrs ago I had never made a game or a mod. I think the many 'hats' that can be worn during game dev confused me on where to start. Thus causing my motivation to go down. I work on some more things and get something to finally to work. Motivation goes up, get more done. Try something new... boom...brickwall (motivation drops). Several weeks to get that to work...etc. I was jumping from Torque to Milkshape to Quark and back. I was trying to learn several software programs as well as Torque. I think my biggest problem was what 'hat' to wear and when.

Motivation...
The biggest and hardest hurdle to control. The best way I found out to control this is to plan your game out and to set goals for yourself on paper. It is still a roller coaster ride but I keep going in the direction I planned.

edit:spelling

#68 @Stephan,

that's nice except my dsl is flaky so i get nothing done when sbc is working on it.

I wish you guys could dump all the forum resources + tutorials + files + messages/fixes and create a zip file or cd that I could grab everything at once and not have to rely on an online connection while I'm trying to learn the engine.

Even with my blazing cable(when I had cable), it seems like the slow response of the web wasn't helping me learn fast enough.

If I could have a dump offline I could blazingly fast learn more things.

I would say it would be reasonable to do the dumps once a year or every six months or something like that.

Everyone says oh you search first - but the search isn't exactly fast - i mean by the time you look at the returned links and actually click one and actually see the page.

I know the information would be out of date but it seems like it would be helpful.

#69 @Rubes

Thanks, that is exactly what I was looking for.

Here are two things GG should change immediately.

1) The first link under getting started in the email I got after purchasing TGE points me to the Getting Started guide in the official documentation. Bad place to start. Way too dry. When I buy a new car I just want to drive it, not read about tires, gas, and theory of driving. Just give me the key, show me how to unlock the door and let me drive it for a bit. At that point, I really don't care how many lines of code and how many classes are in Torque. I'm already impressed enough to spend $100, just show me how to drive my new car.

2) The links on the main TGE page for the MiniApp tutorial bring me to the page I'm already on, not the tutorial. Fix those links (http://www.garagegames.com/mg/projects/tge/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=5091) and point me to the tutorials Rubes has given me.

Fixing these two things would be a good start. There is a lot of documentation but as others have mentioned it is scattered all over the place.

Don

#70 Um, when I see links like the miniapp tutorials posted in a thread about lack of documentation, I have to point to the fact that not only have the tutorials been available for a while but that they have been available off of the main Torque page for a long time. At least early 2004.

I can understand frustrations, but not seeing them makes me wonder if anyone even looked.

#71 I found Ed Maurina's downloadable tutorials from a link near the top of this thread. They're great, just what I needed as far as they go. They tell you what each item is, what it's used for and how to use it. Ken Finney's book tends to show you huge code dumps and then explain what some of the lines do, but little of what each individual item *IS* or why you should be using it. If you use Maurina's and Finney's stuff together then you have a much more comprehensible guide to TGE than either one individually. I'm looking forward to Maurina's books appearing, he has a sale here already.

I agree with the person who mentioned downloadable docs. I only have a dial up connection. It's not for want of trying to get broadband, but here in the rural west of ireland you are truly stuffed unless you live in a big town. The main (read "only") telecom supplier won't upgrade exchanges to DSL without at least 400 requests. Last time I looked there were 4 including mine for the local exchange! So online videos are a total waste of time, and forum searches are slow and a pain if you need to look at any amount of stuff. Likewise for online docs. On the other hand, I can leave a download running and go and read a book or something if the docs are downloadable. Remember the rest of the world isn't full of cable or DSL, frequently we are at the less than merciful hands of ex-government telcos with no competition :-(

#72 Honestly, after having gone through all the demos and initial docs, the biggest problem I'm having is making the transition from IDE to "engine" development. I'm not able to start some basic version control, and frankly, the presentation of the two game demos is confusing. It would be easier to present a scaled-down IDE and explain more basic dev outisde of the game demos. So, some frustation in not being able to jump in, and I am experienced. Just seems harder than it should be (maybe these are 1.4 bugs).

#73 I found that it was wrong to try to understand the whole engine, or to try tracing into the program from the start as a way to understand how the thing gets itself running, how the client and server operate, etc. I've read many others who have tried this apparently intuitive but ultimately incorrect approach.

What worked for me was to build up little islands of knowledge about (initially isolated) concepts, and as these grow they start to merge and gradually the whole picture starts to make sense. Start with a small test game which isn't too ambitious, then do a larger one, then maybe think about the one you really wanted to do in the first place. Basically, understand the trees first and you'll be able to see the woods later..

#74 Sam has that absolutely correct.

I tried to bury myself in it to try and understand how it works, but you're right, the best way is to just do a few little things here and there, then some bigger things, and before you know it, your knowledge starts to merge together until you have a good basic understanding of most of what's going on.

#75 I want to re-affirm what both Sam and Rubes said: it's my opinion (and that's a very educated opinion--it's my job to teach people how to use torque!) that the best way is to gain modules of understanding of various subsystems, and as you learn more and more modules, they start to make much more sense as to how they interact.

If there were any major subsystems that I would recommend for intermediate Torque users they would be in order:

Concepts and understanding of SimObjects
Concepts, theory, and understanding of the networking, including:

• NetConnection
• Ghosting
• NetEvents

And finally, learning the hierarchy of primary Torque Objects, and what major functionalities each new class provides:

• Con(sole)Object
• SimObject
• NetObject
• SceneObject
• GameBase
• ShapeBase
• Player/Vehicle/Item

Understanding these topics, in order, and you will be very much ahead of the power curve when it comes to Torque development.

#76 As a new user of Torque, I am struggling big time. I have Ken's first book but...its kindof hard for me to decode. The TorqueScript chapter is very well explained and easy to follow. However, chapter four he starts created Emaga. I have absolutely NO idea what he is talking about. I think that I need a better explanation of the organization of the TGE engine. So I feel like I have hit a brick wall. I am by no means a smart man, so it has been very difficult. I will be starting a CS degree in January so I hope that helps out. I have just about finished learning the basics of C/C++ so I hope that helps with my next attempt at Ken's book.

#77 Thanks, Stephen. I've found that producing art assets for the engine is very easy, given the support for DTS/DSQ formats is spread across a very wide selection of modeling packages, but information on scripting is limited. Everybody's got Source changes, not everyone can perform them, which is why the scripting knowledge base if very vital to moving forward...

What I've found difficult is the scripting aspects of the engine and your post helps direct to what is needed.

I've gotten a little bit of 'script' magic going, in the way of vehicles and AI, and skin swapping, but it's not enough to work with. I'm starting to see the 'order' in which things are run, wish I could get a debugger working, console echoing/surfing gets a bit old.

#78 Keep in mind that my post was basically for "intermediate" Torque developers--actual use and techniques of scripting I think are basic concepts that should be picked up even possibly before making any code changes at all.

Once you've spent some time learning and utilizing TorqueScript, you can then dive into the engine itelf, and see how that script you've been using for the last few months actually accomplishes what it does!

#79 Thanks for your efforts and to listening to us Stephen. I have now had Torque for a couple of months and am slowly learning a bit about it each day. At this point, I'd have to say my biggest hurdle is, again, the lack of _organized_ documentation. Specifically in regards to TorqueScript. Here is a specific example. Suppose I want to put an object, say a ball, in a level and have it move about and react to collisions. Where do I even start looking? There is no TorqueScript reference available from GG. Someone (can't remember where I got it) did a rtf file that lists the commands but most of them don't have descriptions and it is about a year old. If I do a search, I'll find some tutorials on collision boxes, referneces to tdn about castRay, etc. But still not how to move my object. I finally come accross applyImpulse method which sounds good, but no documentation on what exactly it does, just that it takes a couple of point3F arguments. Where do i get a normal vector for when the object hits another? How about the velocity or force it hits with? So learning is just this constant slogging through all the noise in the searches looking for a nugget of useful information here or there.

In my opinion, a comprehensive TorqueScript reference is the biggest thing missing from this engine now. I've used other game engines and they have at least all of the commands and methods somewhat documented, many times with examples and references to other related commands. It seems like tdn was supposed to be moving in this direction but I honestly don't see much of value in there. The TorqueScript reference on TDN says not to add content, that it will be replaced by elixir. But I don't see anything happening with elixir. And if elixir is supposed to generate documentation from the code, then the engine code I've looked at needs serious documentation added first. Otherwise we'll have yet another list of methods with no descriptions.

Don

#80 As an artist, the biggest hurdle for me is getting animations to function properly, especially the "jump". Everything else I had to learn about the engine was pretty straight forward....but animations are.... grrrrrr.

Hey there should be a tool called "JUmp Creator" !! It would say : "Set a pose for the bottom of the jump, set a pose for the top of the jump, now set one for the landing." and VOILA! it would figure out all the rest of the crap for you.

MMMM.... jump creator!