TSE status

#1 I don't think theres any list, but if your working with TSE and you find something thats not working, then you could just fix it yourself.
And no doubt it's not going to be long until TSE is out of EA.

Theres been loads of work done on TSE... it has the new water and atlas.
And now TGE 1.4 is out the door, I think Ben will get back to working on TSE more.

#2 >> and you fine something thats not working, then you could just fix it yourself.

Id rather focus on my code than fixing / coding the engine. Thats why I bought a engine
in the first place. However the bounty system is good, might get some ppl do the work =).


>> Theres been loads of work done on TSE... it has the new water and atlas.

Joseph, with all due respect, water and atlas terrain features where available in 2004 ,
more than a year ago. This is why I pointed the IGC 2004 demo. So it doesnt look
as loads of work , at least from outside.

So, at least from my point of view, which I am looking at the engine now, it seems that
there was no work done on engine on any major feature for a whole year. Considering
milestone 3 had minor targets set (at least in public documents, milestone 3 is said to be
bug fixes and small material improvments), a whole year is a lot of time. Makes you
wonder about speed of development of TSE. And also, makes you wonder how long will take a
much more complex issue , dynamic lighting and shadows which will result in a pretty complex
issue, cosidering they have to work as well with interior and exteriors, and skined / static meshes,
and most likely with different light types. At such a pace, you could look at 2 years minimum
for milestone 4 and its bug fixes.

So, Id like to know whats going on on TSE front, concretly. What was done in a last year,
which are current milestone estimates, which is target for version TSE 1.0. I read somewhere
than 1.0 was initialy tought to be out in summer 2005.

Dan

#3 Probably best then to read the employee blogs.
However as GG is so fond of saying...
It'll be ready when it's ready.

#4 Now that 1.4 is done. They are going to take a few days off. Finish Marble blast ultra and then concentrate
on T2d TSE and Constructor. We should be seeing a TSE update in a month or 2 I hope / guess.

@Dan are you sure TSE water and Atlas was done in 2004? Might want to double check that.
www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=8069

#5 >> However as GG is so fond of saying... It'll be ready when it's ready.

Hahhaha

Well. they should try to respect us a little more and try to give some
clear(er) estimates and try to bring the product to 1.0 ASAP. My plans
depend on the tools I have to work with, and not since now I have an
EA realse, I have a partial tool. And which I was a bit dissipointed when downloading to
see it's like in the same status as a year ago. Which I would like to know when it
will be completed (I dont need a set in stone date, but a orientative plan ), so I can
plan acordingly my developemnt. I just spent 250 US$ for TSE (in Torque itself I have
no interes at all ), and Id like to know on what I spent them =)

#6 Milestone #2 was not officially reached until June, 2005. See this Development Snapshot of the Day (June 15, 2005) and this Plan for Ben Garney (Jun 14, 2005).

If you check Ben's other plans, you'll see that he has been busy with TDN and the 1.4 version of TGE.

#7 @Dan yea it may seem frustrating but it will be worth the wait. With 1.4 TGE we will get a "technology transfer" of some
of that work. Meanwhile.. there is plenty to do. The core shader system is working fine for the most part.

#8 Its hard to give estimates on when a new technology will be completed. You have to keep in mind, that all of the features that are getting incorporated into TSE, are completely new technologies. In fact some of the features (like the terrain) may have never been implemented in a game engine before, using the same techniques. Some of the other technologies have only been implemented in a few game engines, and take a lot of research and development in order to implement correctly. These aren't features that you can just look up on Google, and find an implementation that is ready for production use.

That being said, TSE hasn't been getting the loving it needs lately, although its not really Garage Games' fault. They are in business to make money, so sometimes they have to push things off, in order to keep everything going. You have to remember that things like Marble Blast Ultra are actually helping indies dramatically in the long run. Garage Games is trying to create the indie market from scratch, and create places to sell these indie products. With a successful launch of Marble Blast Ultra, it will open a new door for indies to the Xbox 360. This is a huge market we are talking about.

So simply said, every action that Garage Games does is targeted towards helping indies, so that indies help Garage Games. Without the indie developers making games, Garage Games can't expand and make more money. Without Garage Games, indies won't have the markets to sell their games. If you think about it a little, the lagging behind of TSE won't matter quite as much to you.

#9 Ray, with all due respect, what you said do not impress me too much. I doubt the lighting and shading models implemented in
TSe will be new technologies. Maybe for you, but not for me. Also , the code base which I have do not have so much "borderline"
technology as you might think. Saying that all technologies incorporated in TSE are new technogies is an overstatement. Yhe
terrain is something cool, and new for me, but thats all :P

Estimates and deadlines in SW development are prone to be failed. Thats a known fact. But The issue here from my point of view is that
there is no clear feature for final milestones have been layed out, nor at least aproximative 1.0 targeted date. If GG has no internal
target date, thats pretty bad for the TSE product. As I said earlier, the lighting shadowing milestone will likely be the most complex one
TSE guys have to face so far (having significant code myself to deal with dynamic lighting from different lightsources), to get it right.

If developemt goes ahead in the same pace till now, then I can go to sleep for about 2 years for final milestones.

As for your statement , "If you think a little" , please do not assume how I think. My priorities and my requirments of knowing the tools
I work with and the direction in which they move, prior starting developemnt is important to me. TGE does not interes me in the least
(T2D does , this is a little gem ), its rendering technology is way too outdated for me. TSE is a big step ahead, but whithout
knowing the direction and aproximate targeted date for 1.0, I cant commit using it. If you can in such conditions , good luck. So the lagging behind DOES interes me.

Note that I do not demanded TSe 1.0 in 2 months, but I want to know concretly about

1. The direction TSE is moving into, especially on ligting / shadowing issues.
2. Aproximative targeted date.
3. Commitment of GG to continous TSE devlopment, whithout hickups.

#10 Your post didn't impress me too much either. Especially after looking at your profile, and seeing your skills as "Gamer (Novice)". You should actually look at someone's profile, before posting something ignorant like that. It will make it harder to embarrass yourself in public like this.

#11 Do you know when you will finish you're game? I'm sure you do, just like a hundred other people who screwup by like two years on thier target date. It is sometimes better not to give guess estimations.

#12 "You should actually look at someone's profile"

Please, my friend. Your joking, no ? Your actual profile and whatever is written inside it does not interes me in any way. Nor who you are, nor your acomplisments, nor your programing level, nor your assumptions, nor what you think about a technology or not, nor your level in using Google to find information about "new borderline technologies". So I dont really care to read your profile.

I would respectfully suggest you to go to sleep and meditate on your limits . Im interested in milestones and planned features of TSE, not your wet dreams.

#13 You are pretty funny Dan. :)

#14 You too, Ray. No pun intended.

#15 Dan, what you have to remember is that TSE is still EA.

That means you have to accept that it's not 100% working...
There are a number of project working on games in TSE (me being one of them)

Just give GG time...

#16 There is still plenty we can do with custom shaders while we wait. You can even do shader 3.0
programming if you have the hardware now. Stuff like HDR and edge detect etc. Before the next
update even get's here.

#17 Okay...here is the milestone list for TSE:

www.garagegames.com/mg/projects/tse/

Garage Games doesn't not of course have dates for the releases, because its an EA. I have talked to the developers of TSE, and it seems like its highly likely they will be using shadow mapping for shadows. No matter what technology they are going to use, it will most likely not effect your game. It will most likely be something that will "just work" after it is released.

If you are worrying about how dynamic lighting is going to affect your shaders, it looks like they already have stubs for the additional lights in TSE. Just look in "tse\example\shaders\shdrConsts.h". It looks like they are going to have four lights. So just use the definitions outlined in the header when your write your shaders. Or you could just use the shadergen (a technology that i haven't seen in any other shader based game engine) and not worry about it at all.

Tell me if you found any of that information useful. If you need more advice, please just ask.

#18 Randy: That is correct...for example you could implement relief mapping... ;)

www.noolness.com/images/testing/reliefmapping002.jpg

#19 Ray & Robert's comments aside - we do not release our internal dates for the reasons you just described, not even guesses, especially when asked point blank. There might be loose estimates floating out there... there might not.

1. We're leaning towards a PSM solution, as Brian has already mentioned in the forums & at IGC. If this is important, why don't you put some effort towards tracking down places where we've already mentioned it? :)

2. When it's done.

3. Right now we're using it extremely heavily on the XBox 360 to ship Marble Blast Ultra. This is great news, as it means the final product for you guys is going to be up to snuff for even very demanding projects (like developing and shipping a game in less than six months for a brand new console). Minor feature enhancements like significantly faster rendering in complex scenes are also coming out of this, as well as a lot of bugfixes & neat GUI tech.

It also means we aren't paying close attention to the TSE community for the duration. Is this a good thing? I guess we could be shovelling more features out without ever eating our own dogfood. That seems to work for some middleware companies. But it seems to me that serious gamemakers, be they commercial or independent, are going to appreciate a reliable, battle-tested solution a lot more.

Anyway... chill out. :) There's no need to get rabid about this.

#20 Actually GG dev's are just robots with decaying plutonium engines. They work 24x7 and are controlled by a bunker
in Japan.