Looking at TGB, not seeing...
by Caleb Child · in Torque Developer Network · 01/07/2007 (1:15 am) · 3 replies
(I can't find a forum specifically for TGB, this looks like the best place to post this...)
I've downloaded the demo for the Torque Game Builder, and overall I'm impressed and whatnot, but I'm not seeing what I really came to it to do.
See, everything I've seen with TGB, that being the games people have released and the demos they teach you to build, are all "one screen" worlds. I mean, it's great if I wanted to make a puzzle game or a card game or something, but what I was wanting to make was like a side-scroller. Now sure, there were the scroller games they show where the whole world scrolls behind you and objects roll onto the screen for you to interact with, but that's still just the same single-screen world, just with an animated background. I am thinking of something like Super Mario World and the like, something where the camera is going to scroll across a whole world.
Now I'm sure its possible, but I just haven't *seen* it. I don't know what sort of restrictions I face without the pro version, and I don't know how easily one can put together a level like that.
The best way to accomplish it that I can think of is to place "World objects" all around the camera, and have each one inherit commands to move in correlation with the player-object hitting its world limits. But let's be reasonable here, that would involve a fair amount of work, and it should be such a common effect that it should be built into TGB just like layers are.
A full scrolling world is the kind of thing that should come built into TGB, leaving me only needing to program in the physics to make object fall to the bottom of the screen.
Maybe it is, and I just missed that note. Maybe its simpler than I thought. I don't have the answers, but do you? What's the easiest way I can actually build a world beyond the camera and actually have the camera move around to see it?
I've downloaded the demo for the Torque Game Builder, and overall I'm impressed and whatnot, but I'm not seeing what I really came to it to do.
See, everything I've seen with TGB, that being the games people have released and the demos they teach you to build, are all "one screen" worlds. I mean, it's great if I wanted to make a puzzle game or a card game or something, but what I was wanting to make was like a side-scroller. Now sure, there were the scroller games they show where the whole world scrolls behind you and objects roll onto the screen for you to interact with, but that's still just the same single-screen world, just with an animated background. I am thinking of something like Super Mario World and the like, something where the camera is going to scroll across a whole world.
Now I'm sure its possible, but I just haven't *seen* it. I don't know what sort of restrictions I face without the pro version, and I don't know how easily one can put together a level like that.
The best way to accomplish it that I can think of is to place "World objects" all around the camera, and have each one inherit commands to move in correlation with the player-object hitting its world limits. But let's be reasonable here, that would involve a fair amount of work, and it should be such a common effect that it should be built into TGB just like layers are.
A full scrolling world is the kind of thing that should come built into TGB, leaving me only needing to program in the physics to make object fall to the bottom of the screen.
Maybe it is, and I just missed that note. Maybe its simpler than I thought. I don't have the answers, but do you? What's the easiest way I can actually build a world beyond the camera and actually have the camera move around to see it?
About the author
http://calebchild.boldlygoingnowhere.org/caleb/
#2
In fact, if you mount the camera using a defined amount of force (instead of 0), then you can get a smooth movement effect where the camera catches up to the player.
01/09/2007 (1:42 pm)
You can mount the camera onto an object, such as the player - this would give you a scrolling world if you used a wide level. If you want level transitions instead of scrolling, you could put world limits on the player object, then have a callback that changes levels when they're hit.In fact, if you mount the camera using a defined amount of force (instead of 0), then you can get a smooth movement effect where the camera catches up to the player.
#3
01/10/2007 (2:22 am)
Ah, here it is, the platformer tutorial. That should be what I'm looking for. Thanks for point it out for me, and thanks for the pointer. 
Torque Owner Very Interactive Person
Having multiple levels is also very easy to do in TGB.