Torque 2: Hopes and Dreams
by Chad Kilgore · in General Discussion · 10/22/2007 (10:17 pm) · 29 replies
With the plan for Torque 2 to be a "ground up re-factor of the entire architecture," this thread is aims to be a central set of features Torque hobbyists and developers hope to see in Torque 2. Hopefully, GarageGames will respond kindly to these hopes for Torque 2.
...I know I'm excited.
...I know I'm excited.
#22
10/27/2007 (11:47 am)
Is support for facial animation, lipsync, clothing, and true cinematic motion blur (like in crysis) are planned ? 
#23
10/27/2007 (4:24 pm)
With a component based animation system, those could be added. I also like that you could add in your modeling format of choice so that a tool could be created and plugged in to work with your artists' packages of choice. It solves a problem of having artists attempting to use a format that they do not understand and find clunky but is extremely optimized (DTS). DTS support won't be going away, but it won't be the only choice. Collada is on the list. I didn't catch what the animation system supplies, though. Crysis is still simulating motion blur, but the hardware allows them to perform similar processing as Maya and Max but in realtime. It would be cool to have a number of effects layers such as this, though I'm not sure how high it is on the team's list. They don't usually tell random guys at IGC their filter priorities.
#24
I just want to jump in here and reinforce that the list above are all game specific functionalities, and as such are not even close to being on the list of work being performed for the Torque 2 engine.
Nothing will be stopping you from implementing any of the above, but once again it's critical to set expectations--Torque 2 is a game engine, not a game maker--and if you want the features of engines like Crysis, you should plan on licensing their engine.
Nothing will be stopping people from adding in game/application functionality such as you list.
10/28/2007 (12:42 am)
Quote:
Is support for facial animation, lipsync, clothing, and true cinematic motion blur (like in crysis) are planned
I just want to jump in here and reinforce that the list above are all game specific functionalities, and as such are not even close to being on the list of work being performed for the Torque 2 engine.
Nothing will be stopping you from implementing any of the above, but once again it's critical to set expectations--Torque 2 is a game engine, not a game maker--and if you want the features of engines like Crysis, you should plan on licensing their engine.
Nothing will be stopping people from adding in game/application functionality such as you list.
#25
is Torque 2 aimed at exsisting and experenced developers only?
it sounds like there will not be much in the way of "game specific" features out of the box, just the engine;
i am getting "its modular, so add it yourself" would be the answer to every wanted feature at game level for torque 2, followed by "dont like it, go and pay $xxxxxx for unreal 3 for that feature".
which would turn alot of new/hobby developers away as it dosn't have (add generic game feature here, such as dof/motion blur/physX bult in) feature out of the box,
or am i reading this wrong?
10/28/2007 (2:52 am)
@ Stephenis Torque 2 aimed at exsisting and experenced developers only?
it sounds like there will not be much in the way of "game specific" features out of the box, just the engine;
i am getting "its modular, so add it yourself" would be the answer to every wanted feature at game level for torque 2, followed by "dont like it, go and pay $xxxxxx for unreal 3 for that feature".
which would turn alot of new/hobby developers away as it dosn't have (add generic game feature here, such as dof/motion blur/physX bult in) feature out of the box,
or am i reading this wrong?
#26
10/28/2007 (3:37 am)
Deepeyed, I think you missunderstand what a game engine is. GG will provide everything needed to get you up and running, everything from that point onwards is up to you. You cannot expect them to implement all of the features you want to see. If you want to extend the engine beyond what is provided, then you should implement it yourself, or, as Stephen said, get the Crysis engine and be prepared to pay the costs for the licence.
#27
10/28/2007 (4:55 am)
Phill, i think you missed the point of the question, i wasnt meaning me, i am happy with a good base engine to build from and extras in the engine are a bonus, i know what a game engine is. How ever, new/hobby developers look for for the buzz words and such features to compare engines, hence why i was wondering if T2 is mainly aimed at exsisting/experenced devs.
#28
As I understand Torque 2, one of the goals it to be able to integrate with a defined API 3rd party items into the engine. If GG can pull it off resources, packs (RTS pack anyone), and 3rd party packs should be figured out once and carry forward to future engine releases.
Sure at the start there will be many "how do I do X" but once a resource or 3rd party pack is added it should carry forward, rather than be broke going from version 1.1. to 1.2.
If the modular design holds it also should be far easier to add the code/packs too. I envision:
1- You purchase a pack (RTS, RPG, Forest Generator, etc)
2- You copy the code/script Modules to the correct places via the installer. Not a patch program in sight!
3- You compile and start working with the pack.
No more:
Find file X, around line Y, add in this line of code. Oh by the way that was version 1.2 of the engine, so I think the code gets added now at line Z of version 1.3. Not 100% sure but it compiled and seems to work. (At least that has been my experience with the resources for TGE.)
Feel free to correct me if I am wrong about Torque 2. If I am the above should be a central feature of Torque 2. :-)
-edited for readability.
10/28/2007 (6:14 am)
From my perspective the whole "Its not in the base engine" shouldn't be the big issue it is with TGE. If it wasn't in the engine to start chances are the method of doing X is broke in version 1.5. As I understand Torque 2, one of the goals it to be able to integrate with a defined API 3rd party items into the engine. If GG can pull it off resources, packs (RTS pack anyone), and 3rd party packs should be figured out once and carry forward to future engine releases.
Sure at the start there will be many "how do I do X" but once a resource or 3rd party pack is added it should carry forward, rather than be broke going from version 1.1. to 1.2.
If the modular design holds it also should be far easier to add the code/packs too. I envision:
1- You purchase a pack (RTS, RPG, Forest Generator, etc)
2- You copy the code/script Modules to the correct places via the installer. Not a patch program in sight!
3- You compile and start working with the pack.
No more:
Find file X, around line Y, add in this line of code. Oh by the way that was version 1.2 of the engine, so I think the code gets added now at line Z of version 1.3. Not 100% sure but it compiled and seems to work. (At least that has been my experience with the resources for TGE.)
Feel free to correct me if I am wrong about Torque 2. If I am the above should be a central feature of Torque 2. :-)
-edited for readability.
#29
My biggest gripe with TGE was its lack of information about how to use it. These days this is no longer true - the online documentation here at garagegames.com is extensive and more than adequate. But when I first purchased TGE in 2004, there was very little information to be found. It wasn't until Ed Maurina III released his book in 2006 that I first got to learn the engine from the ground up and how to accomplish a lot more than a handful of very specific things covered by third party tutorials.
I suggest GG gets him to write a new book for Torque 2 (if they're not doing so already) and release it simultaneously with the Torque 2 engine (or as close as possible). And definitely upload complete online documentation simultaneously with the new engine's release.
10/28/2007 (8:44 am)
I'd like to mention what I consider the most important feature to implement for Torque 2... a Manual!My biggest gripe with TGE was its lack of information about how to use it. These days this is no longer true - the online documentation here at garagegames.com is extensive and more than adequate. But when I first purchased TGE in 2004, there was very little information to be found. It wasn't until Ed Maurina III released his book in 2006 that I first got to learn the engine from the ground up and how to accomplish a lot more than a handful of very specific things covered by third party tutorials.
I suggest GG gets him to write a new book for Torque 2 (if they're not doing so already) and release it simultaneously with the Torque 2 engine (or as close as possible). And definitely upload complete online documentation simultaneously with the new engine's release.
Torque Owner Dusty Monk
Windstorm Studios
One of the things I'd like to see revamped or re-architected is TGE's animation system. The existing architecture requires you to specify your animations individually in the .cs file, build your own logic for swapping between animation sets, and just doesn't seem to scale well for an application that may be animation intensive -- anything where your animation count could scale up into the hundreds.
I'd love to see more of a node based hierarchy, with weighted blends at the nodes, and perhaps scripted or coded game logic for determining switching between children of each node. So for any particular character, you could build an animation tree of nodes and game logic for switching between the nodes. The animations used in the tree could be specified in a collection, and the collection swapped out at run time.
Wouldn't mind too much either if the physics system and the animation system talked to each other nicely -- maybe prewired support for applying forces to bones, and the results of those forces blended in with the animation.
Just sayin. :)