C4 engine vs Torque

#41 @Gareth Fouche

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GG hasn't claimed TSE is a stable game building platform. They say its possible to use to develop games if you have the know-how and are used to working on a rapidly changing engine, but thats another way of saying "its unfinished, so be prepared for lack of stability and bugs, if you can deal with that, heres what we've done so far, knock yourselves out".

GG says it's Atlas is not complete, just like Terathon says their C4 terrain isn't complete.

My point?

Benjamin pointed out that C4 has a "lacking" terrain engine by quoting something from the forums over there, *but* the situation is the same in TSE. Both are in a kinda EA state.

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TGE, on the other hand, is a stable, proven engine. Proven over I don't know how many years, and in more than 20 games. Honestly, I wouldn't put my eggs in a basket thats only existed for 4 months, unless I didn't have much to lose by investing in said basket (ok, this metaphor is getting silly).

I agree, I wouldn't invest in the basket either.
I'm just saying we should be more forgiving to other engines.

#42 Awwww, but thats boring though, I say instead of being understanding we rain thunderous fury and fiery wrath down upon their heads, like the vengeful God of the Old Testement. ;p

#43 Its another issue here to and its core updates of engines .
I been around since v12 and core updates like shadows sounds and lights are still not working 100% in tge.
Still i love Torque for many other things , super great community , and all other things it has.
But i have talked with so many guys about this and everyone says the same , all spend a lot more time searching and try to fix things in the engine then doing a game.
I would really want to see all the fixes done in tge at least the core ones , i would pay for a update if that's the problem , but when nothing is done , then you must ask yourself what other ways to approach.
If C4 has all things i looking for of course i will buy that instead or at least test it out.

We all want to do a game from the pictures in our head , but paint without shadows is really hard as a artist .

#44 I downloaded the C4 demo. My pc isn't the greatest, but i think it is comparable to the audience I would be targeting as an idie developer. The performance of C4 was really bad...I think this is more a limitation of my graphics card than it is of C4. It may be a great engine, but if I limited my market to only the user that could power it, what's the point.

#45 I tried the C4 demo...to be fair, it ran really good on my computer. I will admit that my PC is pretty up to date though. If the demo had nice art, seeing how well it ran on "my" pc, it could be aimed at higher end systems.

That said, the community for C4 looks pretty weak. TGE is a great solid engine for people serious about making games, and GG has done a good job on bringing in people to make this great community. C4 is looking good, but I don't think its to the point where a serious developer could use it.

Oh, BillyL: I am an artist too and I think the same way. Gotta have shadows! The answer lies in the Torque Lighting Pack :)

#46 @Blake

"C4 is looking good, but I don't think its to the point where a serious developer could use it."

??
If you said "only a serious developer could use it" I'd agree. I recommend the C4 code base to any serious game developer. It's well written source code and worth the money. Even if you don't run your game on it there is a lot of great code in it there that a serious torque developer would die to get his hands on (spatialized 3D sound + full EAX, etc and all that working on Mac+Win).

#47

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Maybe you should try to avoid getting personal, makes you look stupid. If you would had read my post instead of flaming, maybe you could had understand what I actually typed in there.

I never mentioned TGE as a comparision, which you of course failed to understand.

And considering the price range on C4, one would think they could have used an artist instead of a programmer to make the art.

So perhaps you should refrain from using the word "intelligent" when you can't even be bothered to discuss like an intelligent being yourself.

Well someone's got their knickers in a knot :)

I never implied you were unintelligent, only that your comment was.

I did assume you were making a direct comparison between C4 & TGE as that's what this whole forum thread has been about.

I'm not even going to touch your 3rd comment cos that kind of proves my point.

As for your final comment my ego's not fragile enough to feel the need to bite.

In closing, I wasn't getting personal & I appologise if my comment offended you. In the future I will be more sensitive to your insecurities.

#48 IMHO, I would neve consider using C4 over TGE or TSE. From taking a look at C4, I think that it looks great. My biggest thing is the availability of information on using Torque. For example the many many books being developed. Two of Mr. Finney's, plus one more on the way. Ed Maurina's AMAZING looking book. It's an information age and Torque wins on that front IMHO.

#49 I've read through every post on this thread and would like to offer my opinions...

The first thing that seems to be overlooked by some is that C4 is still very much in it's infancy. It's only been around for four months and as someone mentioned earlier is progressing extremely fast. Torque has been around for 5 years so naturally It's going to be more developed with a larger community and some published titles under it's sleave.

I have respect for both engines, and they both have their strong points. In my opinion, if you wanted to make a game that has all the bells and whistles rendering wise, C4 is the better choice. Naturally you'd have to put the hard yards in but the end result would be amazing.

Now, to address some of the unfair comments (hope admin don't delete my post this time : p)

Comments like this are of no value...

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What games have been made with C4.... NONE. End of story.

Well as mentioned above 4 months vs 5 years. I'm not going to elaborate on this any further as it's pretty clear as to why it was a supid thing to say. If you honestly believe your statement than the following statement would also be true... What games have been made with TSE.... NONE. End of story.

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I'm not trying to slam the C4 engine, but seriously... How are you going to make a game if in their own forums they talk about how the terrain is "At the moment, terrain is in a semi-usable state. Instead of using multiple textures that you can "paint" onto the terrain, it uses one gigantic texture that you have to create yourself." (Taken from their forums only two weeks ago.) I don't know how anyone can compare TGE with C4 when C4 only has semi-usable terrain and C4 doesn't even have any games developed with it.

You are trying to slam the C4 engine! I don't have a problem with criticism as long as it's constructive and justified. If I wanted to I could lead people to over 20 threads on this website outlining bugs in the Torque engine. Some of which have been around for four years with no official fix on offer. Heck, the first time I tried the 1.4 demo I couldn't even alt-tab or the engine would crash. Oh, and I'll spare you the discomfort of mentioning the audio problems in Torque.

In closing, I have experience with both engines and quite enjoy using them both. I like to keep other friends, collegues, indie developes etc informed of other new emerging engines (just as I did when I first discovered the Torque engine). I don't appreciate frivolous comments which offer no real insight as to what an engine is really like, wether they be about the Torque engine, the C4 engine or any other game engine.

#50 Just for the record, you _can_ "play" the TSE Demo. You have to set your control object to the space orc and you can run around, freely. :) Or just press alt+c to go into freefly cam view. Doesn't help anyone not familiar with TGE, though. ;)

-Jase

p.s. You can also copy over the world editor, and hack in a weapon. ;)

[ And now back to your regularly scheduled flaming. ]

#51

Quote:What games have been made with TSE.... NONE. End of story.

uhh... Marble Blast Ultra.

#52 As Mincetro stated, not only Marble Blast Ultra (which has as of this week more than 40,000 people on the leaderboards, indicating at least that many sales have been made), as well as ThinkTanks, Marble Blast, and Orbz for XBox 1 Live Arcade (all done on TSE versions).

TSE has also been used successfully for commercial projects, the only one of which I can talk about is Valador's Mars Rover simulation--while it looks like a semi-boring toy, it's actually a demonstration of using Torque's platform for real world simulation--just so happens the world they used was Mars.

This conversation is honestly quite rediculous if you think about it however---you are either comparing TGE to C4 (which is apples and oranges in HUGE ways), or you are comparing C4 to TSE, both products aren't even close to being finished in the feature side...TSE's lighting/shadow model isn't even released yet, so how can you compare it to C4's?

Torque's strength has always been networking, and while we are stretching our R&D to the limit to get ahead of the tech curve in other areas as well, it will always be our primary strength when compared to other engines. Every engine is going to have their strength, and will shine in that comparison against other engines. Torque's second area of strength is cross-platform (all the way to console), and that is something that not only takes expertise, but marketing, networking (of the personal type), and a proven track record.

If those are the qualities that interest you, then Torque is your product of choice. If other strengths (of other engines) interest you, then they are your product of choice. I certainly wouldn't use a hammer to cut a 6 inch hole in a wooden board, and I can imagine I wouldn't use Torque for certain types of projects either (although admittedly I can't think of any at this moment!).

#53

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uhh... Marble Blast Ultra.

This is a great and exciting accomplishment but wasn't this done by Garage Games staff. My point in the above post was relating to the average consumer, indie game developer like you and I. Not the company that created the engine who would have access to a larger resource base and more finances / staff to make things happen. More than the average independent game developer anyway.

#54

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This conversation is honestly quite rediculous if you think about it however---you are either comparing TGE to C4 (which is apples and oranges in HUGE ways), or you are comparing C4 to TSE, both products aren't even close to being finished in the feature side...TSE's lighting/shadow model isn't even released yet, so how can you compare it to C4's?

I agree 100% with the above comment. Comparing TGE & C4 is like comparing apples & oranges, having said that the price of both engines is identical which narrows down the criteria for choosing between either engine. TGE is quicker & easier to use, has huge community support etc C4 has superior rendering and a cleaner code base etc.

Talking to other game developers the main reason some people are put off by TSE:

1) The time it's taking to develop (eg C4 has been out for 4 months and already surpasses rendering technology of TSE which has been in production for 1.5 years)
2) $300 price tag (which is reasonable for what you get but can be an issue when there are other engines with the same, if not better, rendering technology at a cheaper price)
3) The amount of bugs in TGE which don't seem to get the attention they deserve by GG staff. Does this mean TSE will inherit these bugs as well???

Not trying to put the Torque engine down, just offereing some areas for improvement. If I had to choose beween either engine I couldn't, I'm happy using both to suit the different needs of the different games I wish to develop.

#55 Quite openly and honestly, we admit that TSE was shortchanged in the development assets assigned over the last 10 months for Marble Blast Ultra (as well as another project under NDA).

This decision was made for dozens and dozens of very important reasons, absolutely not the least of which is a now-proven pipeline from TSE development on a PC directly to a state of the art console system. It's been mentioned many times before, but during the testing of MBU, we only had 2 XBox 360 dev kits--yet we could test 5+ person multiplayer because the same build was running on PC's as well, and networked with the dev kits.

Additionally, the codebase was stretched wide and far, and went through hundreds of optimizations and enhancements to get MBU out the door--all of which will be factored back into the core code base.

It was a strategic decision made for many reasons that aren't obvious (and unfortunately couldn't be released) to the community...and it makes TSE look bad historically: we certainly agree. However, we all agree at GG that the long term benefits of the decision far outweigh the negatives.

Nowhere else can indie developers buy a game license for $295, make a high quality game, and see that game dropped into a state of the art console platform just by sending a dozen or so emails and having the engine company put you in contact with Microsoft.

#56 It's absolutely amazing that this exact same forum keeps poping up from none SDK owners. I wonder where they keep coming from...oh wait the C4 community.

@Frank - Why in the world doesn't a game created by GG count? They did a wonderful job with MBU and are been rewarded with much success. There have been other games that have been successfully developed by non-GG groups, Think Tanks.

I have no doubt that C4 is a great engine. However, Torque has a proven track record. It has released multiple AAA quality title, the Tribes series, MBU, etc. If you want to fight over what is the better engine, you are going to lose here.

#57 @Nihonlvr: come on, everyone should know that a game built by the engine company doesnt count as one built on the SDK.

it doesnt prove anything in the SDK's usability, as chances are there is a lot of engine modifications that had to be custom made for marble blast.

granted, those modifications made for marbleblast will probably help in fleshing out TSE, but and it does help people understand TSE's potential.. but it doesnt say anything about TSE's current usability by indies

#58 "@Nihonlvr: come on, everyone should know that a game built by the engine company doesnt count as one built on the SDK."

Yeah man, I truly consider a marble racing game above my skills, as man himself is above the humble ant. No other members here could possibly possess the skills to make small balls race along platforms. Truly GG is made of demigods, beings so far beyond the rest of us mortal indie developers that we should quake in abject fear when one of them walks through the door, or posts in forum threads.

(Just to clarify, I am NOT trying to mock the GG team, or their hardwork and dedication, I do actually think they are amazing and skilled and worthy of immense praise; I was just pointing out the rediculousness of saying that "normal developers" can't make a marble game, thats its beyond our puny skills)

I think one the great things about the games GG makes is that they demonstrate how to make successful simple games, ie it doesn't have to be a MMORPGFPSRTS to be a hit. Simple, focused design, streamlined, fun gameplay, etc. The logo says "Make it fast, make it fun", not "make it using the latest l33t Pixel Shader effects, that can only run on the most hardcore systems".

#59 @Nihonlvr

1) Think Tanks isn't independent from GG

2) No-one's really having a battle over which engine is better, just analysing the differences and possibilities of the two

#60 "1) Think Tanks isn't independent from GG"

It isn't? As far as I know, TT was made by Joe Maruschak (apologies if I've misspelt that) and co from Bravetree. Bravetree was independant from GG at the time they made it, but decided to merge with GG when it was offered to them at a later date, after they'd shipped TT. And what about Orbz from 21-6 productions? Or Dark Invasion : Lore from Max Gaming, or Minions of Mirth from Prairie Games, or Camelot Galway from Starcave Studios? Those aren't GG aliases btw.