Showtool Pro

#1 Just buy TGEA through the TGE upgrade option. Costs you the same and you get your Show tool.

#2 I already purchased TGEA. At the time I didn't even know what ShowTool was.

#3 Uh, okay. Just saw no such note on your profile and thus concluded you were still before the purchase. Don't actually know if GG still does the "Torque SDK Owner" note thing.

Looks like DTS *import* options are starting to pop up, so that may be at least sort of a replacement.

One reason GG may not ship the show tool with TGEA is that the tool has not yet been updated for TGEA and uses the old TGE rendering pipeline and there's been considerable changes here. Show Tool thus won't properly handle a lot of the TGEA models.

#4 The only important changes are Shaders/Materials from TGE to TGEA. Everything else works the same. Have you tried mailing them directly?

I still use the Show Tool alot even though I use TGEA.

#5 Thanks, James....speculation about the art pipeline is not needed.

I have often wondered about this "TGEA" compatibility moniker towards DTS/DSQ content....it's just scripting to enable Shaders, right? Nothing has been done to the DTS/DSQ formats, has it; to make it "TGEA" compatible, right? Does this mean the DTS/DSQ formats are changing...lol. I don't think so! This would have been made public long before now...

...measure twice; cut once.

#6 If it were included with TGEA, would you expect it to have shader support? The usual answer to that question would be "yes" because people using TGEA have made the decision often based around the use of shaders and shader tech for modern hardware. The problem, as Rene noted, is that TSTPro is based on TGE tech and is not shader-enabled. It would take considerable re-engineering of the product to match TGEA user expectations.

#7 "It would take considerable re-engineering of the product to match TGEA user expectations."

While I completely agree with the statement, a better way to easily preview material settings / shaders etc on models for TGEA would be very much welcomed by all. It does seem like a big piece of the TGEA art puzzle is missing.

#8 Basically what David is saying is that GG is only willing to provide just enough to barely put out a good product. Anything else takes too much effort. Hence the whole comment about everyone will want support for Shaders and it would take too much work.

#9 @AndrewOsborne
Yeah. Sadly it's missing from a number of engines as well as TGEA. I think a tool that worked across various chipsets would be wonderful (and could be profitable)! I would definitely like a preview option rather than the "put it in the game and see if it works...tweak...repeat until it works" method that many engines, including TGEA, use. I would love to see a material or shader previewer that lets you tweak and rework settings before writing them out. Kind of like what CrazyBump has done, but with a wider range of features (and of course the ability to write out a materials.cs file). That would definitely be cool. I quite like the preview window in the C4 editor, though I'm not a big fan of its workflow due to personal taste.

@Jeramy79
I obviously wasn't clear since that wasn't what I said at all. I'll try to be clearer from now on to avoid any more misinterpretation. I was simply stating that expectations of what a users receives with TGEA would most likely match the expectations of someone looking at TGEA's shader tech. That makes perfect sense. If I bought TGEA and got something to preview my models and animations for free, I'd expect it to preview my shaders on those models as well. I think most people would, even if it were explained that shaders were not part of the product because it would require several man-months of complete ground-up redevelopment of the product under TGEA because it is not a simple "oh sweet, let's add a shader plug-in!" task. It would be nice if it were, but it's just not that easy. As a developer, I'm sure you know that it takes time to completely rebuild something mostly from the ground-up.

But perhaps Torque isn't the right engine for you Jeramy. Overlord wasn't the right solution for project management (and hopefully one of the various other ones like DotProject or such worked with your host), and perhaps Torque is not the engine for you either. Maybe Unity or GameCore or A7 or Unreal 3 (the make something unreal contest is going on where you can win an engine license) would be better suited to your expectations. After reading some of your posts, I'm still not really sure what your expectations are for an engine or support or artflow. I really have no sense of what your expectations are, except that Torque doesn't seem to be meeting them. I'd like to know because I'm interested in expectations of our users, and because if I know your expectations, I might be able to find you another engine that meets them better. We're working on making Torque better everyday, but I'm still not sure that it will match your expectations or the timeline of your project. If you want, you can contact me via e-mail to let me know what you were expecting and how Torque falls short of those expectations. I actually like to hear criticism of the engine, especially if it is new criticism. It helps us plan and prioritize what we're doing to make our engine better. And you obviously have a number of opinions on that front. I'd love to hear them so I don't misinterpret the few posts you've made and put words in your mouth about these expectations when researching community ideas.

#10 @Jeramy

Quote:
Basically what David is saying is that GG is only willing to provide just enough to barely put out a good product.

Another comment that /dev/null is more than happy to digest.

#11 @Dave

I sent you an email.

#12 Yup! Got it!