TGE poorly documented
by Arild Pihl · in Torque Game Engine · 03/28/2007 (4:33 pm) · 83 replies
I'm hoping someone out there can prove me wrong, but in my opinion Torque is very poorly documented. The only documentation that came with the engine, are scattered comments in the code and scripts, and a 16 page PDF file that tells us how to create a terrain, put a Torque logo in, and how to make a script that enables the player to pick up the logo. The tutorial also mentions that the onCollision function is automatically called by the engine when two objects collides. But are there other functions like this? I've been searching for a complete list of all functions, parameters and stuff like that, but as far as I can tell, there aren't any. I have bought both "3D game programming all in one" and "The game programmers guide to Torque", but I'm still having problems finding the information I need. I feel both these books have a "If you write this, this will happen"-approach to teaching. "The game programmers guide to Torque" does have an appendix on the disc that comes with it, and the "Quick Reference" is the closest to any proper documentation I've found. The TDN that I've supposedly paid $150 to, is in fact only partly completed, and in addition, on the top is a note that says it "will all be replaced with content from Elixir very soon. So it is unnecessary to further expand this article.". This comment is dated October 2005. Not really impressive either. The link to the Elixir page works, but links to an article about why Elixir was chose over Wiki.
Of course we have these forums. But after reading them, I often encounter people with questions like "Where are the engine, I can only find the Torque Demo", and this tells me that there definitely are others out there that could use better documentation too.
The problem I have now is WheeledVehicle. I have made a new simple DTS object to use as a Vehicle, and another one for the tire. Then I changed the car.cs file so that these two objects where loaded in stead, hoping that it would be that easy. But no. This resulted in the car bouncing around uncontrollably, so I started changing the variables in the WheeledWehicleTire, WheeledWehicleSpring and WeeledVehicleData. But that only resulted in either more uncontrollable bouncing/shaking, the car bouncing off into outer space, or the car actually falling straight through the terrain and continuing down. And since I have no documentation, I have very little idea what the variables should be set to! For instance, one article I have read says that the "antiSwayForce = 1.0" will make the car come to a standstill in one second. But I have read through other peoples examples, and found values as high as 3000!
Hopefully someone will understand my frustration and give me a link or a file, or something magical that I must have overseen while reading books and forums for the past month or so.
Any help will be greatly appreciated!
A.P.
Of course we have these forums. But after reading them, I often encounter people with questions like "Where are the engine, I can only find the Torque Demo", and this tells me that there definitely are others out there that could use better documentation too.
The problem I have now is WheeledVehicle. I have made a new simple DTS object to use as a Vehicle, and another one for the tire. Then I changed the car.cs file so that these two objects where loaded in stead, hoping that it would be that easy. But no. This resulted in the car bouncing around uncontrollably, so I started changing the variables in the WheeledWehicleTire, WheeledWehicleSpring and WeeledVehicleData. But that only resulted in either more uncontrollable bouncing/shaking, the car bouncing off into outer space, or the car actually falling straight through the terrain and continuing down. And since I have no documentation, I have very little idea what the variables should be set to! For instance, one article I have read says that the "antiSwayForce = 1.0" will make the car come to a standstill in one second. But I have read through other peoples examples, and found values as high as 3000!
Hopefully someone will understand my frustration and give me a link or a file, or something magical that I must have overseen while reading books and forums for the past month or so.
Any help will be greatly appreciated!
A.P.
Thread is locked
#82
The thing is I'm not saying that... I'm saying valid point (to those that present valid points).
There are links to documentation on that link, search for the word "documentation".
Joe has expressed this a lot better than I have lol... I'm a bit worn out on docs at the moment, I have basically been working on them with 3/4ths of my work time (and 1/4th of my personal time lol) for the past year or so.
We do really want to improve the docs for our other products other than TGB and TorqueX. We learned quite a bit with attempting to step up our TGB docs, then passing over the framework (as Joe said) to the TorqueX docs we learned a lot more as well.
One of our biggest goals (again as Joe has said) is to create maintainable docs. There's nothing like have 700 pages of docs with anywhere from 300-500 images that are all outdated... now someone has to go through each and every one of those tutorials, re-create them to ensure they work, update pictures, etc. We did exactly that with TGB at one point, lol... we've been learning (especially me) a lot of lessons on the Doc front, we do plan to extend what we've learned over to our other engines, TGE and TGEA, and in that process we will learn more and adapt our internal tools more.
In the end all of our users win because we can actually create a large doc base that is maintainable and we also win since we have a large doc-base that we've always wanted.
04/12/2007 (9:13 am)
Quote:If every time someone says that the lack of documentation is bad you say "Stop complaining".
The thing is I'm not saying that... I'm saying valid point (to those that present valid points).
Quote:There are no documents on that link.
There are links to documentation on that link, search for the word "documentation".
Joe has expressed this a lot better than I have lol... I'm a bit worn out on docs at the moment, I have basically been working on them with 3/4ths of my work time (and 1/4th of my personal time lol) for the past year or so.
We do really want to improve the docs for our other products other than TGB and TorqueX. We learned quite a bit with attempting to step up our TGB docs, then passing over the framework (as Joe said) to the TorqueX docs we learned a lot more as well.
One of our biggest goals (again as Joe has said) is to create maintainable docs. There's nothing like have 700 pages of docs with anywhere from 300-500 images that are all outdated... now someone has to go through each and every one of those tutorials, re-create them to ensure they work, update pictures, etc. We did exactly that with TGB at one point, lol... we've been learning (especially me) a lot of lessons on the Doc front, we do plan to extend what we've learned over to our other engines, TGE and TGEA, and in that process we will learn more and adapt our internal tools more.
In the end all of our users win because we can actually create a large doc base that is maintainable and we also win since we have a large doc-base that we've always wanted.
Torque Owner AllynMcelrath
www.garagegames.com/developer/torque/artist/
There are no documents on that link. Nothing about the DTS shape format or how to use them.
Other than the in game editors doc, that are from the dawn of time.