New Torque Shader Engine (TAT) or Quest 3D????

#1 What type of product are you in the business of creating? Will this be for 3D visualization or architectural walkthroughs, and such or for games? Quest3D can be used to make games, though it was not designed with games directly in mind (just like Flash and Shockwave can be used to make games, though they were designed for different purposes). TSE's strength is in game development, though the serious games industry (such as NASA) has licensed it as well--it should be noted that NASA also has some top-notch programmers and engineers to throw at it to tailor it to their specific needs should it not fit their mold. If HDR and bloom are your only measure of need, then looking at Unity, BeyondVirtual, Irrlicht, TSE, and such would be a good idea as well. But I don't know what kind of projects are in your pipeline. I would have a hard time recommending Quest3D for games, though. But it is top-notch for architectural visualizations. But that's just me.

#2 We plan on using the engine that we choose for Multi-player games. Both engines seem pretty equal on functionality, but Quest has actual renders that shows off the HDR and Blooming features. That is the look we are going for.

It's funny you mentioned Beyond Virtual because I liked their program except for the absence of shaders in the current build of the engine. No realistic water, etc. w/ that engine at the time.

Do you know of any good demos that have been done recently w/ Torque Shader... that could show the level that the HDR is at in the current build?

Dbolto

P.S. Thanx for such a quick response.

#3 Here is a page that details the lighting system in both TGE and TSE. Not sure on pics at the moment.

#4 I'm not sure of any new demos released other than the milestone one on the product page. Of course, will will want to contact Quest3D and test a fully functional version of the Power quite to see if their networking functionality will work in your intended environment (I am guessing not likely) or if it was developed for interactive demos which allow multiple users on a network to "take control" of the presentation. Say, for an architectural firm in New York that is designing a hotel for business leaders in Japan; to let them take control of the walkthrough and experience the design. I do not know how robust the networking is. For most engines, however, shader tech is all client-side since it has next to nothing to do with gameplay. BV does have some shaders enabled, but not necessarily the ones that you want. I believe they removed the HDRi and bloom shaders from the full-screen effects in the last version to optimize them since they were slowing the engine to a crawl when enabled (though I'm not sure if they were ever in a public release or only in alpha/beta state).

There is a rather extensive article on the MS4 HDR and DRL features with the lighting kit on TDN. It also notes that some shader 3.0 cards still do not allow it as well as working with a number of other full-screen cinematic effects.

EDIT:
Matt got to the TDN page first!

#5 I had to evaluate Quest 3D for use about a year ago.

Personally, I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. The program is very convoluted and confusing in my opinion. Granted I only had a few days to evaluate it, we eventually chose Virtools for that specific project, but Quest's method of doing things just completely rubbed me the wrong way.

I would think that going with an engine more suited for games would be a better choice.