Is there a from scratch tutorial?

#1 The Shooter tutorial is 'from scratch' , I don't see how one can make it more bare bones. Most people make the mistake of doing a tutorial once and understanding about 40% of the material. To full comprehend the tutorial, go back , do it again, this time modify it a bit, start learning WHY it is happening and being abstracting the knowledge.


good Luck

#2 But it do not teach you how to use the tilemap editor.

additionally y tried to load a tilemap, from the spacescroller, but it displays an error saying it can not load the tilemap!

i have torque2d 1.1alpha4

do you know does the tilemap editor cannot load the "scroller.map"? so i can learn from it????

thanks.

#3 Look at the pdf file in your documentation folder
\documentation\reference\Tile Editor.pdf
this file is also on tdn

or the online tutorial on tdn
http://tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/Torque_2D/Tile_Map_Editor_Tutorial

this should help I hope

#4 Matthews you are right, most tutorial are not will written. Most assume you know something and leave things out. Then when you dont understand them they get mad not realize that fact. I going do some tutorials for T2D but I am waiting for the next release. I think that what hold Torque back there alot good information but not alot of good tutorials. Tutorial should be step by step, for example, Click Scene Editor Icon (3rd icon first row bottom right). There should be the icon picture in the line. Least that way IBM does for there training for other companies.

#5 Online there is a fairly step by step Platformer, Strategy, and Tetris tutorial. Not all are updated to the latest version (last I check the community had updated the platformer) and the Strategy wouldn't be hard to port to the new directory structure. The Strategy is roughly 200 pages of step by step tutorialness :)

#6 @Michael Prewer
GG needs a documentation campus with a few hundred employees like IBM.

I'm not sure where you're coming from in saying that the tutorials are not well written. They (i) are clear and concise, (ii) tell you exactly what to put where, and (iii) give you full, working examples of various gametypes. I can understand people having difficulty with versioning, but not the quality.

EDIT: @ added for address clarity.

#7 I think the largest problem is that you don't get much of the "behind the scripting" as we can't access the information until they have the friendlyness to unlock TorqueScript documentation for all Torque users not only TGE ...
Its not that intuitive to use and compared with the A5 C script docs they are really inexistant.

#8 There is some information out there on the GG site on torquescripting, although it's not in the best place IMO. There is also some on TDN but it's not linked from the T2D pages! What I did was searched TDN, because (at least for now) we can get into certain areas that attempt to cover some parts of TGE and Torquescript.
tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/Special:Search?search=scripting&go=Go
and
tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/Special:Search?search=torquescript&go=Go

I wish they could just unlock all of TDN for us though.. Without a license it's not like we can make TGE games just by reading on how to do it. Heck, we may even be inspired to purchase if we read enough good things.

Some examples of what I've found by searching:
Input Guide
tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/TorqueScript/Input/Overview

Console Types
tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/Torque/ConsoleTypes

FileObject
tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/TorqueScript_FileObject

Networking, Server andClient
tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/Torque/Networking/Server_and_Client

Datablocks
tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/TorqueScript/Datablocks

Localization
tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/TorqueLocalization

Script Class Hierarchy
tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/Torque/ClassHierarchy

There are more, but like I say you have to search deep into TDN to find them. So dig around, and if you feel generous post more links here! :)

#9 Uuhh links that work :-)
Thank you *saved that for later :-)*

#10 If you want see if Tutorials are clear then give them to some who know nothing about the engine if they start triping up alot than they are not. There alot people that have trouble with the tutorials. There alot member here. We should have alot good tutorials, I hope can help change that. I have written alot tutorials for software, SAP is one them. I hope to use that knowledge here but first I need to understand Torque.

#11 There are different tutorials for different purposes... in some cases it is necessary to up the level of knowledge of the person going through it, otherwise every tutorial would have the same content. I'm fairly confident my strategy tutorial (as well as all my other ones) could be picked up by just about anyone, though some areas I don't go into complete detail since it would've grown from 200 (roughly) pages to over 400 :)

There are tutorials that are meant for those starting out (like the basic tutorial), then there are tutorials that are meant for specific education on a single topic (like the image map tutorial), as well as tutorials that are for the mid level TGB dev to take their knowledge even further.

#12 Ok I am following your strategy tutorial. I am run into problems. I am using Beta1_1_T2D-SDK_1_1. I dont have a "initialiseClient()", in game.cs. I dont have // Add your custom code here... I have very little in game.cs. Look to be a different set. Where do I put the code?

#13 Yes, the strategy tutorial is a bit out of date with the introduction of the level editor and the behind the scenes reorganization of scripts. Most of the stuff in the old initializeClient found it's way into initializeGame in the initializeT2D.cs file. However, if you are running your game from the Launch->Run Game inside the level editor, it is best to add your custom code to setupT2DScene (in games.cs) after the camera setup stuff.

#14 I have try putting the custom code there. Sometime I get white screen and sometimes it will crash.

#15 In cases like that, it is helpful to post your script here so we can help. For example setting up game.cs like this:

// --------------------------------------------------------------------
// Setup T2D Scene.
// --------------------------------------------------------------------
function setupT2DScene()
{
	// Create t2dSceneGraph.
	new t2dSceneGraph(t2dScene);
	
	// Associate Scenegraph with Window.
	sceneWindow2D.setSceneGraph( t2dScene );
	
	// Set Camera Position to be centered on (0,0) with
	// view width/height of (100/75).
	sceneWindow2D.setCurrentCameraPosition( "0 0 100 75" );

	
	onStartUp();
}

function onStartUp()
{
   $strategyScene = t2dScene;

   loadWorldMap();
}

function loadWorldMap()
{
   new ScriptObject(worldMap);
   worldMap.map = new t2dTileMap(Map) { scenegraph = $strategyScene; };
   worldMap.map.loadTileMap("~/data/tilemaps/worldMap.map");
   
   worldMap.grassLayer = addLayer(worldMap.map, 0);     
   worldMap.grassOverLayer = addLayer(worldMap.map, 1);     

}

function addLayer(%map, %num)
{
   %layer =  %map.getTileLayer( %num );
   %layer.setPosition( "0 0" );
   %layer.setTileSize( "4 4" );
   %layer.setLayer( 30 );
   %layer.setGraphGroup( 10 );

   return %layer;
}

While this code doesn't follow how the tutorial set up the scripts in different files and exec() them, it might help you to compare this against what you have and see if the tilemap you created loads properly. Check the console too to see what error messages, if any, you get.

edit: also, since the file structure is different now in beta 1.1, make sure the tilemap goes in the folder I referenced above - data/tilemaps/

#16 I try your code, T2D loadup without the map. I have double check everything. The worldmap is in data/tilemap. I have no idea what cause this. I sure there something I am not doing. very information, thanks

#17 Have you checked the console to see if any error messages are displayed? You can open the console with the ~ key, or check the console.log file.

#18 There was no error in the console. I was able to create a work around. I going to continue on with the tutorial.

Mike Lilligreen, is anything esle I should know about the Strategy tutorial, any problems I might run into. Thanks

#19 @Michael I feel your pain, as I have just gotten T2D and am brand new to torquescript also.

What I found was best was this guide: http://tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/Torque_2D/Getting_Started/T2DBasicTutorial1 . I felt that this has been a very, very good help, and something that helped me along, is that I have made it a top-scroller instead of a side scroller, and used a few different things, abstracted some functions into others, just general messing around with the code.

If there was one thing that I did not like about it though, was that it relied upon the other tools being there to *mostly* function, and I could not figure out why until I deleted the tools directory and replaced toggleLevelEditor() with setupT2DScene(), then it worked! Now it only relies on the main.cs where the exe is located... and I havn't tried to figure out how to take that one out yet.

Anyways, good luck with whichever path you choose!

#20 Michael,

Hard to say if you will run into any other problems. I first did the strategy tutorial a few months back with the alpha 1 or 2 build. With that small bit of code I posted above, I copied it straight from TDN but I found myself editing it a couple times as some things (like setGroup being now setGraphGroup) haven't been updated in the tutorial. I do have a copy of it in beta 1.1 but it has quite a bit of my own code that I added or heavily modified from Matthew's original tutorial framework.

I would say 99% of what is in that tutorial is still valid and will work in beta 1.1, and if you do run into trouble you can always ask here.