Tge, Tse And Rts Kit
by Guimo · in Torque Game Engine · 05/03/2006 (3:25 pm) · 9 replies
Hi,
I'm here for help trying to decide on buying Torque.
Even when I'm not a complete noob writing games (I've even written my own game engine) I'm completely lost about the TGE.
I'm currently writing a game (http://www.warscale.com). The idea of the game is a cross bred between Magic The Gathering and Warcraft3. Even when the game works fine I find time consuming keeping my game engine and fixing the bugs so I was considering to rewrite the game using a good solution. TGE presents a nice option so I started some research about it and now I'm confused.
After reading a little I was really interested in buying a license. I thought that with the RTS kit and the TSE I
had more than enough to go... until I found this comment in the RTS Kit:
--------------------------------
Starter Kit consists of an installer which contains the full Torque 1.3 codebase along with the changes needed to make use of the RTS code
...
This pack was built on Torque 1.3
--------------------------------
After searching a little more I found that even some packs work only with TGE 1.3 or 1.4 and by the comments it looks like they aren't much backwards compatible.
Now I think. If I use the RTS Kit... Will I be able to use the 1.4 engine? Will I be able to use it in case I want to work with the TSE? Will I be able to use the excellent environment packs or will I need to re export everything in order to make them work with the TSE?
Another question. This time about the TSE. Maybe someone may comment if the TSE will handle FX files or is shader only? In case it supports FX files, are there a group of semantics supported?
About the Torque books. I was told that there was a book called Game Programming All In One and there was even an 'Advanced' version. Is this the same than the book currently being sold here?
About the networking. Some other thing I doubt is that my game presents a lobby system allowing players to login and create a game and wait for opponents before launching. If you have played Gunbound or Magic The Gathering you know what I'm talking about. It means there will be a lot of players at the lobby but at most 4 players will be playing in a single room. The game per se doesn't consume too much bandwidth but it must be completely reliable about transmission.
So, please tell me if the TGE will be able to handle this kind of work and don't forget your comments about engine integration.
Thank you very much for your time.
Luck!
Guimo
I'm here for help trying to decide on buying Torque.
Even when I'm not a complete noob writing games (I've even written my own game engine) I'm completely lost about the TGE.
I'm currently writing a game (http://www.warscale.com). The idea of the game is a cross bred between Magic The Gathering and Warcraft3. Even when the game works fine I find time consuming keeping my game engine and fixing the bugs so I was considering to rewrite the game using a good solution. TGE presents a nice option so I started some research about it and now I'm confused.
After reading a little I was really interested in buying a license. I thought that with the RTS kit and the TSE I
had more than enough to go... until I found this comment in the RTS Kit:
--------------------------------
Starter Kit consists of an installer which contains the full Torque 1.3 codebase along with the changes needed to make use of the RTS code
...
This pack was built on Torque 1.3
--------------------------------
After searching a little more I found that even some packs work only with TGE 1.3 or 1.4 and by the comments it looks like they aren't much backwards compatible.
Now I think. If I use the RTS Kit... Will I be able to use the 1.4 engine? Will I be able to use it in case I want to work with the TSE? Will I be able to use the excellent environment packs or will I need to re export everything in order to make them work with the TSE?
Another question. This time about the TSE. Maybe someone may comment if the TSE will handle FX files or is shader only? In case it supports FX files, are there a group of semantics supported?
About the Torque books. I was told that there was a book called Game Programming All In One and there was even an 'Advanced' version. Is this the same than the book currently being sold here?
About the networking. Some other thing I doubt is that my game presents a lobby system allowing players to login and create a game and wait for opponents before launching. If you have played Gunbound or Magic The Gathering you know what I'm talking about. It means there will be a lot of players at the lobby but at most 4 players will be playing in a single room. The game per se doesn't consume too much bandwidth but it must be completely reliable about transmission.
So, please tell me if the TGE will be able to handle this kind of work and don't forget your comments about engine integration.
Thank you very much for your time.
Luck!
Guimo
About the author
#3
There are several threads in the RTS private forums of merging the two. It's not that hard, just a little time consuming.
05/04/2006 (6:02 am)
Actually you have to hand merge the RTS kit into 1.4 for it to work. There's no official release yet. From what I gathered, it'll probably be released with the next point release of TGE 1.4.There are several threads in the RTS private forums of merging the two. It's not that hard, just a little time consuming.
#4
I remember seeing your game before during the 4E4 contest on gamedev and thought it looked interesting. To answer some of your questions, the current version of the RTS kit is using TGE 1.3, I recently bought it and managed to merge it into TGE 1.4 without too much fuss. If you know your way around a decent merge tool it won't take you too long. I just use winmerge for mine.
The only thing you will have to keep in mind for TGE and the RTS kit is you will still need to do some engine work to get it to where you need it. There are still quite a few bugs in the RTS kit and the updates have been very slow in coming.
Networking will be your biggest gain I think, but bare in mind that TGE wasn't designed for running multiple rooms at once, so that will take some working too. I don't think it would be too hard to accomplish, but as far as I know it won't do it out of the box.
As far as TSE, I haven't messed with it yet so I can't help you there.
Anyway, good luck on the game!
Jon
05/04/2006 (6:29 am)
Hi Guillermo,I remember seeing your game before during the 4E4 contest on gamedev and thought it looked interesting. To answer some of your questions, the current version of the RTS kit is using TGE 1.3, I recently bought it and managed to merge it into TGE 1.4 without too much fuss. If you know your way around a decent merge tool it won't take you too long. I just use winmerge for mine.
The only thing you will have to keep in mind for TGE and the RTS kit is you will still need to do some engine work to get it to where you need it. There are still quite a few bugs in the RTS kit and the updates have been very slow in coming.
Networking will be your biggest gain I think, but bare in mind that TGE wasn't designed for running multiple rooms at once, so that will take some working too. I don't think it would be too hard to accomplish, but as far as I know it won't do it out of the box.
As far as TSE, I haven't messed with it yet so I can't help you there.
Anyway, good luck on the game!
Jon
#5
Just two additional question. One of my main concerns is to simulate some effects like fire, water and shadows. I was reading the Torque sample documentation and I see the shadow effects in Orbz were created by modifying the engine and implementing shadow volumes.
Unfortunately shadow vomules only work with some geometry and is not recommended in some cases like trees. In those cases using shadow maps is recommended. Do you know if this kind of shadowng is available in the TSE? (note, all shadows in Warscale are computed each frame as all the objects are moving, even the tree leaves so precomputed lightmaps aren't an option).
Finally, in KEngine (my engine) we can reuse the same model and just change skins in order to get variants. That is, when I load three spellbook objects, I really load the geometry once and three material textures. This allows me to show a red book, a green book or a blue book. I even can assing a different effect to each book so I can show a leather cover, a studded cover and so on. Do I get this kind of flexibility with TGE or TSE?
Thank you very much for your help!
05/04/2006 (12:58 pm)
Thank you very much for your comments. Just two additional question. One of my main concerns is to simulate some effects like fire, water and shadows. I was reading the Torque sample documentation and I see the shadow effects in Orbz were created by modifying the engine and implementing shadow volumes.
Unfortunately shadow vomules only work with some geometry and is not recommended in some cases like trees. In those cases using shadow maps is recommended. Do you know if this kind of shadowng is available in the TSE? (note, all shadows in Warscale are computed each frame as all the objects are moving, even the tree leaves so precomputed lightmaps aren't an option).
Finally, in KEngine (my engine) we can reuse the same model and just change skins in order to get variants. That is, when I load three spellbook objects, I really load the geometry once and three material textures. This allows me to show a red book, a green book or a blue book. I even can assing a different effect to each book so I can show a leather cover, a studded cover and so on. Do I get this kind of flexibility with TGE or TSE?
Thank you very much for your help!
#6
So say you had one player model that needed to be a different color for each team - red, blue and green. You would only need to make one model and the base texture is applied in the modeler. Then you could have as many other textures you want and swap them at any time in-game.
If I remember right the format would look something like:
base.player.jpg
red.player.jpg
blue.player.jpg
green.player.jpg
Then in script you could load in whichever jpg image you want by applying the skin by name... I forget the exact syntax ATM though, but I have used it before.
(This also works well for damage textures on models and things like that)
05/04/2006 (1:52 pm)
I don't know on the first question, but for the second one. Yes, you can setup your models with a base texture and swap them in script and at run-time.So say you had one player model that needed to be a different color for each team - red, blue and green. You would only need to make one model and the base texture is applied in the modeler. Then you could have as many other textures you want and swap them at any time in-game.
If I remember right the format would look something like:
base.player.jpg
red.player.jpg
blue.player.jpg
green.player.jpg
Then in script you could load in whichever jpg image you want by applying the skin by name... I forget the exact syntax ATM though, but I have used it before.
(This also works well for damage textures on models and things like that)
#7
I'm almost convinced. My only problem would be shadows and element effects. My game has a lot of magic after all... there MUST be fire, water, ice, lighting and all that means glows, particles, explosions, shadows, and so on.
Ok, let me do some additional research... maybe purchase the TGE in order to get the complete docs. Won't hurt my resume to add TGE to my skills anyway.
Luck!
Guimo
P.S. I'm really impressed with this forum response. Its a real bonus.
05/04/2006 (3:11 pm)
Thanks Jonathan!I'm almost convinced. My only problem would be shadows and element effects. My game has a lot of magic after all... there MUST be fire, water, ice, lighting and all that means glows, particles, explosions, shadows, and so on.
Ok, let me do some additional research... maybe purchase the TGE in order to get the complete docs. Won't hurt my resume to add TGE to my skills anyway.
Luck!
Guimo
P.S. I'm really impressed with this forum response. Its a real bonus.
#8
05/04/2006 (3:39 pm)
In TGE, there are some resources for doing more advanced shadowing, one even had methods for rendering alpha on trees, and I believe it _can_ run in realtime, though it will probably be death on performance with too much. So there is a setup for stencil shadows and this one that extends TGE's stock shadow code quite a bit.
#9
Yes I was reading those posts and they look interesting. My main concern with shadowvolumes is that they require closed models and trees are usually created by using simple textures trees for the leaves. Even closing those polys you only get an awful patch on the floor.
The second method looks interesting but I wonder how it works... stencil or shadowmap. It really sounds like a precomputed decal. I'm still doing research.
Luck!
Guimo
05/04/2006 (9:53 pm)
Hi Paul,Yes I was reading those posts and they look interesting. My main concern with shadowvolumes is that they require closed models and trees are usually created by using simple textures trees for the leaves. Even closing those polys you only get an awful patch on the floor.
The second method looks interesting but I wonder how it works... stencil or shadowmap. It really sounds like a precomputed decal. I'm still doing research.
Luck!
Guimo
Torque Owner Dave
AFAIK TSE does not support FX files, although the Material description files are a similar concept.
Ken Finney's GPAI1 and the Advanced version are for TGE 1.3 although a lot is still applicable to 1.4. They also cover stuff that is independent of the engine version, such as art and modelling. Be careful, as I understand from some posts that there is another advanced book that is not by Finney and not relevant, although I have not seen it.
Ed Maurina's new book (just launched) covers TGE 1.4 and is superb. You can get it from Amazon. The cover mentions that it is now the official TGE guide, and so it should be, I love it.
Torque networking is extremely robust, in fact you can buy it on its own to use in your game. So no problems there.
I've never used any content or add-on packs, so someone else will have to answer those questions, and also correct anything inaccurate I may have said above!
Dave.