Is t2d right for me?
by Andy W. · in Torque Game Engine · 09/19/2007 (10:49 am) · 5 replies
I am an experienced enterprise-level programmer looking to bring some fun back to coding and make some games. I know how hard it can be to get into this and build your portfolio, but I'm here, I'm tenacious, and I'm making a game to act as part of my resume.
So. I've decided to make a bitchin' side-scroller a la Earthworm Jim, and I've been looking through the various projects, but haven't really seen a whole lot on here, and I was wondering how well T2D would handle that. I'm looking to have large, drawn levels that I can basically overlay on a bounding frame so that they can have tremendous diversity without being tile-based.
I'm willing to buy the advanced version of T2D if it is necessary to make some changes to the code, but I'm currently evaluating how much work that would be.
Comments, suggestions and criticisms are all welcome, of course.
Thanks in advance!
-Andy
So. I've decided to make a bitchin' side-scroller a la Earthworm Jim, and I've been looking through the various projects, but haven't really seen a whole lot on here, and I was wondering how well T2D would handle that. I'm looking to have large, drawn levels that I can basically overlay on a bounding frame so that they can have tremendous diversity without being tile-based.
I'm willing to buy the advanced version of T2D if it is necessary to make some changes to the code, but I'm currently evaluating how much work that would be.
Comments, suggestions and criticisms are all welcome, of course.
Thanks in advance!
-Andy
#2
09/19/2007 (10:55 am)
Well, of course. I've done that, and I just started playing around with it last night. In this post I was mainly looking to see if anyone had attempted this sort of project before and, if they had, what kind of experiences and pitfalls they had and the amount of work they had to do.
#3
That's the one major issue I've heard, although it's important to keep in mind that you'll want to possibly spend quite a bit of design and implementation time on your movement and camera systems--expecting stock physics to handle your movement look/feel is probably not a good idea in the long run.
09/19/2007 (11:02 am)
Fair enough! I will say that one way platforms tend to be difficult to get working well if that is a design goal, but with effort and design that takes into account the way our collision model works, it can be managed well.That's the one major issue I've heard, although it's important to keep in mind that you'll want to possibly spend quite a bit of design and implementation time on your movement and camera systems--expecting stock physics to handle your movement look/feel is probably not a good idea in the long run.
#4
How might stock physics be inadequate?
09/19/2007 (11:11 am)
Ohh, this is good stuff. Would you be so kind as to elaborate on these points just a tad bit more? How are they difficult to get working "well"?How might stock physics be inadequate?
#5
It's certainly not tailored to provide "common expectation" platformer physics, and you'll want to be aware of that. It's not that it can't help you--it's that what it will do for you will probably not be exactly what you want, so you'll be looking at how to properly integrate the underlying systems into the look/feel you are interested in.
This is pretty standard, for what it's worth--in general, the more flexible/agnostic any engine is, the less focused it will be on providing exactly what a particular game needs. Sometimes it's flexible/powerful in a way that meets your needs almost perfectly, sometimes it is not. Platformer physics tend to be something that require adjustment to get what you are looking for--sometimes small, sometimes large.
09/19/2007 (11:15 am)
I can't really elaborate too much without specifics as to your movement system and such, but in general TGB is a game agnostic physics implementation--it's designed to handle most collision/physics needs for [i]most[/g] game genres.It's certainly not tailored to provide "common expectation" platformer physics, and you'll want to be aware of that. It's not that it can't help you--it's that what it will do for you will probably not be exactly what you want, so you'll be looking at how to properly integrate the underlying systems into the look/feel you are interested in.
This is pretty standard, for what it's worth--in general, the more flexible/agnostic any engine is, the less focused it will be on providing exactly what a particular game needs. Sometimes it's flexible/powerful in a way that meets your needs almost perfectly, sometimes it is not. Platformer physics tend to be something that require adjustment to get what you are looking for--sometimes small, sometimes large.
Torque 3D Owner Stephen Zepp