Alpha3 1.1 is live

Hey guys,

We put up a new verison of the Alpha. :) Actually, we put up two new versions... Alpha3a and Alpha3b. Details on 'em below!

First, let me quickly state the difference between the two versions. Alpha3b contains a brand new directory structure layout that we propose providing with T2D (and eventually TGE and TSE). I think it's much, much, much easier for people new to Torque to understand this layout. If you're checking out the alpha, please let us know what you think about it. (In fact, I'm going to start a new thread on it right now :).

Okay, other than the directory structure, these two builds are identical. Here are the highlights of what's new and different:

Alpha 3:
-Includes merge with TGE 1.4 (actually, this includes stuff that will go in TGE 1.4.1...)

-Includes our new packaging utility! Check it out. We're actually working on some revisions to this right now, but it'd be great to get some feedback on it as-is. Note that this is Windows-specific, for now. You can use the packaging utility to automatically create a publicly distributable version of your game. It will go through your scripts and analyze what scripts and assets (eg images and sounds) you use, copy the DSOs all over to a new folder, and insert the T2D.exe and necessary support binaries along with it. In english, it takes everything your game uses and puts it in a nice little package for ya!

-Includes t2dShapeVector... this introduces primitives support to T2D. So, you can create lines, boxes, etc without needing bitmap graphics. We hope to expand our vector support in the (perhaps semi-distant) future. :)

-Includes new polymorphic console methods. We've made it so you don't have to pass everything in as strings now. So, for example, you can call .setPosition(%x, %y), instead of .setPosition("10 20"). I'd really like feedback on this... in fact, if people don't care about us maintaining backward compatibility with the old string-passing method, then I'd strongly consider ripping the string stuff out and working it exclusively with the new and better multiple param methods. :)

-Includes a new gSceneTicker, which you can use to track time. This hasn't yet been fully integrated into every T2D object, but we hope to soon.

-Includes lots of bug fixes

Note though that unfortunately, we didn't get a chance to *entirely* update *all* the docs. And, in fact, in the Alpha3b build, we goofed a little bit and didn't include a couple of the docs we normally ship (eg GettingStarted.pdf!). Woops! :) We'll certainly patch that up before release, but I just wanted to make the note here that the docs in this version, especially Alpha3b, shouldn't be considered final-ish by any means. We also have a lot more docs to write... eg on the level editor.

We'll do another release as soon as we can... and I'm hoping the next one will include yet more editors, and docs that are closer to being fully up to date, along with yet more bug fixes.

Please note... when you report bugs, please mark them as Alpha 3! And if you feel really helpful, in your bug reports, please help us indentify where in the code, script or assets the bug lies... and if you feel extra, extra helpful, go ahead and provide a nice fix! Thanks. The whole idea with these alphas is to give everyone a preview of what's to come, give you early updates, and hopefully have everyone help out making the engine better.

Note as well that the OS X build for Alpha 3 is being worked on now as well. It will take a little time to get it ready, but we wanted to get this build out to as many people as possible as soon as we could. :) Paul Scott is dilligently working to make the OS X side rock though. :)

Thanks very much to Melv, Justin Dujardin, Matt Langley, Adam Larson, and Paul Scott for all their work on this! Also, remember to checkout the T2D section on TDN... lots of great new docs up there, built for T2D 1.1. :)