TGEA v1.1? Questions...

#21 I've been messing with TGEA for a little while now, but I LOVE IT.

True there are missing features, but instead of getting all pissy I just work them out myself. That's part of the job of being a programmer. I know that not everyone is a programmer, but that doesn't stop them from learning how to program or finding someone who knows how.

I'm very thankful to GG for their products. They have put me light-years ahead of where I would be right now if I would have started from scratch with my own game engine.

Personally I look forward to adding in my own features and functionality. It gives me a greater understanding of the engine and it's processes.

Not to mention that most of the "ship stopping" things don't seem like they should be stopping you from anything. They seem more like wanted features that were never put in.

Not getting on anyone or trying to be a dick.
Just giving my 2 1/2 cents.

#22 Actually, TGEA was designed with many genious ideas in mind. Clip mapping, a material system, HLSL, these were all very popular ideas only years ago. ShaderX and GPU Gems have recommendations for what next-gen engines should have, and it looks like TGEA has followed many of them. I'm quite happy with TGEA, though one nice feature would be .fx support.

#23 I guess the better question when people go ranting about what TGEA doesn't have would be... what engine in the price range has a comparable set of features? I buy and try just about every engine, and use them as tax write offs. So I try just about all of them and when your talking about the full package, it's not really close. Dan, I know is a proponent of C4, which I also own, and that's a good example of the difference between TGEA and other engines in the price range. C4 has some great features, but in the end it's only a rendering engine (with limited material support and no terrain). You aren't going to find many engines in the sub $5000 price range that have quality terrain and material support, quality networking, particle engine, vehicles, or anywhere near the number of features of TGEA. So what good does it do to troll the forums, complain and nitpick and whine about everything every chance you get?

I'm sure we all have a list of things we want to see in TGEA. For me I'd like to see the sunlight affect the terrain, and a way to add different detail or normal mapped textures by the terrain type easily in atlas. I'm sure many of the people here would like to have some terrain painting or hole carving capabilties, etc. But at the end of the day you need to ask yourself, is there any other engine that I can move to in this price range which is going to have less issues? I've try them all, and I can't say that there is.

#24 Smith:


Well, GG had every chance to make TSE right. But they keep blowing them. This engine was released after donno how many years with "dynamic lighting and shadowing" not working on all objects, countless bugs, and less features then it was advertised. The port is poor in many places.

Truth is, the lighting in TSE suxs yet. TSE is so much less then it could be. They got a reasonable good engine
TGE to work with, and still in so many years they where not able to implement complete working dynamic lighting and shadowing.

What a joke. And they dared to say TSE is out of EA phase ? They rushed it out because they realized the lost too much time already. They cut down features initially promised , as the OpenGL support, and of course they where unable to provide a complete and working dynamic lighting and shadow system, even if they outsourced it to god know who.

#25 Hey Dan, got any games done yet?

Seems like all you ever do is complain about TGE-A, when you could actually be writing you know..games.

#26 The lighting and shadows may not be on par with some of the other big engines out there, or even with some of the high quality low cost rendering engines like (C4), but it's not terrible either.

OpenGL support would be nice for portability, but is it worth delaying the product and any additions for god knows how long to implement something that caters to 5% of the potential user base? The performance boost alone is a very good reason to migrate from TGE to TGEA, not to mention that the shader and material system is very clean and easy to use, or that Atlas is much more useful for a lot of project types. I've ported two different projects from TGE to TGEA, and saw my frame rates more than double, despite using more eye candy in the process.

With the way TGEA stands right now, it is ready to ship most types of games. Noone is saying it's not without issues, but its not nearly as bad as some people make it out to be.

#27 @ Stephen: That's what I'm talking about. People need to spend less time getting pissed off and try working on a game. That's what I'm doing. Yeah there might be some problems here and there, but I'll get past them. I always do.

@J.C.: I too have ported some demo/prototypes over to TGEA and saw a major increase in framerate. I agree with you that people are making it seem worse then it really is.

#28 The big success of GG and their best product is Torque game builder . That was worked on by ppl which know
what are doing and turned out to be a very good and solid product.

Sadly, not the same can be said about TSE. The development was very slow, full of hick ups, and they still dont have a programmer skilled enough to deliver a good lighting system. Even a decent one. Its over their capabilities, it seems , to produce a unified lighting and shadowing system.

Its a joke to have in year 2007 unlit terrains, and certain objects cant cast shadows on others , and so on. It's a joke they put version 1.0 out, when the state of the engine is at most a beta 1 :P

#29 Sadly, I have to at least partially agree ...

When comparing TGB to TGEA, then TGEA loses in nearly any sector unless the criteria is "using shader and do 3D only"

- What I mean is that the editors for TGB were finished before release.
- The annoying bugs were fixed as well before release or shortly after. (its 6 weeks after TGEA launch and we still have to insert the fixes ourself that have been posted and fixed weeks ago. Either get SVN back or get used to 3-4 weeks MAX patch cycles. We are paying for that service so please deliver it or rethink your new pricing policy)
- Documentation: TGEA is just crap in this sector while TGB shines. Seems like really no one at GG is even interested in writting them and the users seem to stop doing it for them after the recent decisions of GG. So please hire a technical writter or "lend" the one from TGB team. The fact that TDN has far too many pages referring to TSE shows this lack of interest just too good as not even the engines name was update within the last months. Doxygen is good for basic stuff, but with complex material systems and very setup sensitiv light and shadow systems, they are by god not enough, especially not at 300$ with 1 year of upgrade.

If I wanted shader, complex code and doxygen and no support, I would have used OGRE, just because its at the price of 0$ for X year of upgrade (beside donations I do for stuff I use thats offered for free to me where I can't contribute in a different way)

#30 You might have used Ogre for rendering, but that's all that it does. You then would spend a long time integrating a networking and physics package, and implementing a ton of features that Torque already has. I like OGRE, it is a clean and easy to use rendering system, but Torque is a game engine.

I'd love more documentation too, starting with how to use TGEA's lighting in shaders, and some explanation of the batched rendering system wouldn't hurt either. I could care less about them spending what could be programming time on replacing instances of TSE with TGEA in the documentation. I'd much rather have more features than fluff. Also as a long time TGB owner also, you won't get any argument from me against what you are saying. TGB is great. But comparing that to TGEA is like comparing every other Tarantino flick to Pulp Fiction. His other movies are good, but Pulp Fiction is great. But there are many projects that just won't work or do not want to go the 2d route.

#31 Well mainly, what is to be compared is the **quality** of a product, TGB, and the **quality** of the complete failure which is TGEA.

It was put in 1.0 even before milestone 4 was complete, the lighting and shadowing system used now is crap, and even not working on all geometry types.

It was reduced in features , and even some of GG employees pretended that OpenGl was never part of any milestone plan.

There is no respect for licensees , the bugs are not fixed with years, or 1/2 years. They even took the CVS offline . It was useful, nevermind it was updated like from Xmass to easter. Truth is , this is hardly a quality product , its not even a finished product, and shame , it was labeled 1.0 .

Like I said, they are good in taking money, but not good on making stuff happen and deliver a quality product. TGEA is a the culmination of 3-4 years of poor programing. In so much time other ppl wrote a full game engine from scratch, engines much more advanced than what TGEA can deliver.


GG, stick with TGB. You did a good job with that, make it your flagship, seems that 3D is a bit too much.

#32 Was OpenGL support promised? I know it was talked about, but that was years ago. Things change. Is OpenGL support really worth the time just to reach out to a small percentage of gamers?

#33 Yes, OpenGL was on the list for milestone 4. yes, things do change, but they would better not change when you make a purchase of an EA based on the promises they make for features.

#34 OpenGL isn't a big deal; I'd rather see bugs decimated and everything that worked in TGE working in TGEA (foliage/shapeReplicator/lighting/antialiasing)

#35 @Chris: I have the Shapereplicator working in TGEA here.

#36 @Dan: I'm still waiting for you to explain to me what other engine offers comparable features in the same price range. What other engine has comparable rendering, and also has a similar feature set? I can answer it for you since I buy and try them all. There isn't one. But feel free to enlighten me.

#37 Smith:

Rendering in TSE is not much. Rendering wise there are much better options out there than TSE.
Even Ogre is a much better rendering backend than what its put in TSE.

Yes, its a complete engine , with some good parts in it, some very good parts , but all the good parts are coming from TGE. Which was not developed by GG, btw.

GG doesn't have what it takes to make a modern 3D engine, not even when they have a very solid base to start with. The proof is in the pudding, even TGE has better lighting then the so called flagship TGEA in its 1.0 incarnation. Years after years and when the time come , all they could come up with is a 1.0 which aint even bug free. Not too mention milestone 4 stuff aint working.

Now they put it out of EA, so they can say to you tomorrow: you want fixed dynamic lighting (sometimes in the next 10 years ? You want lit terrains ? Pay us a upgrade price of 50 US$. Or you want some atlas tools , or fixed bugs ? Pay us another hundred. I dont say that this would necessary happen, but I would not wonder if it does.


Smith,

you can only answer for yourself, not for me. Do remember that.

#38

Quote:
Was OpenGL support promised?

Not really. It was on the Milestone list, just like Atlas Editors. But that is hardly promising anything. I wish it was ;)

#39 While this is no doubt Dan may get on some peoples nerves, I don't think anything should call for GG Employees blantently making fun of someone, especially someone who is paying for their technology. In addition in a thread about trying to figure out what the next TSE service pack will contain, in hopes that it will bring the engine closer to being a legitimate 1.0 release product (like modern compatibility), I dont think GG should jump on developers for not releasing Games (maybe those developers have a higher standard for what is 1.0 then GG does...). In addition GG is making a product for indy developers and bashing them will certainly not help business.

#40 I don't want to turn this into a discussion of rendering engines, and I have always liked the Ogre team, kudos to all the people who have spent years working on the engine for free. However, it's very debatable if that has a better rendering engine than TGEA. It's very easy to get something up and running quickly in Ogre. When your talking about the rendering features required in a real game though you need actual mechanisms to work with those features. Your need management systems (such as those used for foliage, precipitation, wind, decals etc) which allow you to use them in the real world. And that is before you even start thinking about things like efficient networking, physics, conforming mounts and synchronization, vehicles, and things of that nature. You can't supply another engine in the price range that has that full package, because there isn't another engine that exists that does. And you know it. But rather than give up your crusade against Garage Games you'd rather try to divert attention away from it. You start on a thing about pay us for improved lighting, pay us for this and that. You do realize there is another engine update a week away don't you? GG has provided support for years on their products at a low cost, with many free updates. But since you can't find anything else to complain about your inventing new reasons to.

Honestly Dan, you have been at this for years. Early on there was reason to be angry as a TSE owner, when things were in a state that was completely unusable for all but a certain type of very simple project, and things were happening so slowly that you wondered if it would ever get done. You didn't see me jumping in there and defending GG at that point. But at this point, there isn't a whole lot to complain about. There are some things that could use improvement, but you could say that about any engine out there. What MS 4 stuff that isn't working?

And with regards to only I can answer for yourself and not for me... Okay I'm still waiting for the answer.