A beginners worry

#1 I would suggest that you start with either Torque Game Builder or Torque Game Engine before you mess with Torque Game Engine Advanced.

TGEA is not well suited to new users (especially users who have no programming experience) and you will run into many headaches. TGB and TGE are well suited to new users, and TGB is really good for people who have little to no programming experience.

If you really must use TGEA then I would suggest that you find a programmer you uses and owns TGEA to help you with your project(s).

#2 Roger that, but I presume you are looking at TGE. What are you planning on doing, yourself? My guess is that Torque is an excellent place to learn basically how to code, if you intend to stay mostly on the script side of life.

If you're looking to become a professional programmer, I would probably not start with a 3d game engine, but with a basic programming book.

I'm guessing you just want to "make games". In that case, IMHO, you've come to the exact right place :)

Do you want to design? Do 3d art? program? It matters.

edit: I wouldn't "worry" though. It won't do you any good. Just try it and see.

#3 This forum seems great. I think I am more of a level editor type person (click and drag). But I get the impression that you must start from the beginning regardless.

Any advice?

#4 Yep, start at the beginning. Or somewhere else. Just start.
You'll be wanting to learn TorqueScript.

Just start making a game! Then search the forums when you have a problem, and post when you can't find the answer there.

#5 Hey,

Sorry to tag onto the back of this thread but I'm also a complete novice too and have never programmed before (although I have worked as an artist in the games industry for a while now!) but I would like to start to learn how to design games for myself and get a good basic knowledge of TorqueScript using TGB.

Can you guys reccommend anywhere or anything that I should be looking at to start out?

Cheers :D

#6 No way! Don't go to TGEA!! You will give up! Even TGE I think it will be a little hard (but possible if you work for it) because GG simply don't have many up to date tutorials, information, snippets, etc etc for TGE. Most of the actual resources are wayyyyy outdated (some are from 2004-2005...), some of them work fine but you have to know exactly what you are doing so you can do the modifications! Honestly I think that for the new users (specially does without your with few Knowledge of programming in general) TGE and TGEA are not for the everyone, they are before, but not anymore, at least for me. I know that if I started today with TGE or TGB I would pass some really bad time #|

But of course this is just my opinion, if you have more free time than me (about 1hour a day) maybe you win this :P

#7 Alex. I have recently purchased The Game Programmer's Guide to Torque. I have only read the first couple of chapters and it seems pretty good. This book guides you fom defintions to how to interact with the torque game engine (theres also an advanced one out) At the moment I have no PC or the torque game engine. I am literally starting from scratch. I have been advised to purchase game builder 2D. Its simple but very effective by all accounts. I am purchasing a customised desktop PC for ~

#8 The fallen . So 2D game builder is the best option? for a novice?

#9 XNA is a nice option, its free, uses one of the best languages to date (C#) and is very intuitive yet still as raw as you can get for a graphics API.

On the other hand, since you got the book you can do quite a lot with just the TGE Demo, getting your head around the TorqueScript will surely give you the best insight to the engine.

#10 .

#11 As far as 2d or 3d engine--pick the one you really want to work on.

Personally, I'd just start jacking with it. Try to do something. Then try to do something else. Repeat.

Although Berserk's sounds like a good, more formalized option if you go for that sort of thing.

#12 Hey thanks guys for all your help! It's very much appreciated! I guess learning the nuts and bolts of pure basic would be a good place to start! :D

#13 For a beginner I absolutely positively 100% recommend TGB. I started with TGE when I was 13 back in 2003 by reading 3D Game Programming All in One. It took me a very long time to fully understand Torque Script but once I started using TGB it became a breeze. I don't know what Berserk is trying to say by comparing XNA to game maker. TorqueX has some drag and drop in it however it is extremely flexible. XNA on the other hand is much more "starting from scratch".

I would stay away from XNA and C# however because to me at least it's a more complex language than Torque Script.

I would say, get the plain old TGB, eat up all of the tutorials, then make as much as you can.

#14 .

#15 Witty1982, yes! TGB is your best option. Never the less read some books about programming logic and stuff like that, just my opinion.

#16 Berserk--one thing I would comment on is that not everyone is here to learn how to make game engines--some people just simply want to express their game ideas in a game, as simply and quickly as possible--which is why tools like TGB and Torque X can be so nice for them :)

#17 Strange, if you use save as it should save it just like cs, but never the less, you may just edit the name and delete the ".txt". Nice and easy ;)

#18 Just edit the name of the file and delete the ".txt". for example if the file name is player.cs.txt just rename it to player.cs

When you do this the file will became a valid .CS file, of course you will have to choose the option "open file with..." and them choose the notepad so that you can read it, but it works fine.

#19 When i check the properties of the game.cs file which is found in my gamescript file it says type of file: CS.
Even though i have created a new txt document titled 'player' using notepad i can save the file name as a .cs rather than txt. though when i check its properties it says file type : text document. im confused. I have followed the tutorial instructions i went into "games/yourProjectName or 'myfirstgame'/gameScripts" folder then created a new text folder opened it using notepad but just cant get the properties of this file to save as a cs file. thanks to anyone that can help.

#20 Ok so i have checked that and it seems fine. when i press 'play' to run the game, no error message comes up so i assume everything is fine. My ship is motionless and accordign to the text it should be moving. I must be be making an amateur mistake somewhere but i m struggling to figure it out. I have only downloaded the 30day trial but nothing else. maybe its a graphics card issue? i dont have a compiler but surely this is not an issue at this stage?