Torque for Architectural Walk thrus

#1 If your models aren't animated, you don't need any programming at all. Just export your buildings as a .dif or .dts and drop it in. You don't even need to purchase the engine unless you are going to sell your game. (if you are actually making a game.) If you are looking to make animated objects, there are premade scripts that you can modify easily to use. TGE should work quite well for walkthru's.
edit...oops

If you want to say:

Build a house and allow people to walk thru it. (like a realtor would) you would make your house and export as a .dif (make sure to look up the dif format to find examples how to make them properly) and place your dif and textures in a folder. Drop that folder inside the example folder/data/interiors. Then, inside the game world, press F12, then F4. Click the Plus ( + ) next to interiors to open the folder in the tree. Find your house, look at where you want to place it, and click your house. It's now in the world. Don't forget to save or it won't be there next time.

#2 WOW! That's great - I'll try this out and see what comes of it.

Thanks a lot!

#3 Please forgive the ignorance in this post....

So, I downloaded the demo of version 1.5 GE... It just seems to be, well, a demo - which means I can't do what I wanted - at least from what I can tell. You say: You don't even need to purchase the engine unless you are going to sell your game - but I don't see where I can download a free version. Is this what I want?

I did look through the demo and found the skies awesome, the lighting great and the shadows very cool. I would LOVE dropping a model in for architectural visualization. You mention needing to know programming if my models are animated - they aren't. Does this mean that the other stuff manufactured by the GE will also not need programming skills? If so I am VERY excited about this.

Also, I have done some poking around searching for a script to export to dif and dts. I found one for Max. I figure I can export from sketchup to max then from max to the GE.

Thanks.
The idiot.

#4

Quote:It just seems to be, well, a demo

Yup. It's a demo. You can still use it tho. If you want to use the fps starter or the racing starter kits, you would need to buy the Indie lisence. I don't think you need that tho, as you are only using it to visualise your work.

Quote:
You mention needing to know programming if my models are animated - they aren't. Does this mean that the other stuff manufactured by the GE will also not need programming skills?

You will only need programming skills if you are animating objects.

If you are exporting from Max, you will want to export as a dts object. Place your dts object with it's texture in a folder. Place that folder inside the data/shapes/ folder. Launch the game. While in the game, press alt-c to go into fly mode. Press F12 to enter the editor. Then, press F4 to enter the correct editor and find your model folder in the tree on the right. Press the + sign next to your folder name, and there will be your dts. Click it and it will be placed where you are looking. You can then rotate, move, and scale it from there. (click drag to move, alt-click-drag to rotate, ctrl-alt-click-drag to scale)

#5 Actually it should be F11 for the editor, but aside from that Mike is right. Just add it into the shapes folder area and it should show in the staticShapes list.

#6 This is so cool! I finally figured out how to get into the game engine - thanks a lot for the tips!

OK, I have a few more questions now if I may.

I have figured out how to import objects, place them etc. I have also started a scene from scratch, applied a ground texture etc. When I start a new scene there seems to be a default ground plane, default sky, default sun etc etc. These have a lock symbol next to them which implies to me that I can't do a whole lot with them. Is this true? When I want to adjust things like sky and sun do I need to create new ones?

Also, I noticed that the objects have the word "null" by them. It would be nice to have these turned off for visualization purposes - is this possible?

When I start a new world the ground plane seems to be mapped via a black and white cloud texture - the hills and valleys rely on the BW texture. Is there an easy way to substitute this with a flat ground plane that can be edited later? What I am considering would be to use a texture that has trees or city scape like stuff to create a type of "bowl." My model would sit in the middle of this.

Anyway, thanks a lot guys for getting me going on this. When I started taking classes for animation I wasn't sure if game design is what I wanted to do but this is turning out to be really neat.

Thanks

#7 Hey Tim

Architecture visualisation with Torque is pretty easy to come up without any major changes in the code (or any changes for that matter). I am looking into this for some time now though I never got the time to set out and actually work on a project start/end.

What you need now is figure out your way into the level editing (check out the new documentation system) and ways to export your models into DTS format (Torque native, for either static or animated objects). There is also the INTERIOR / DIF format option but if you are new to it and do not really need accurate collision you can wait until your skills with torque are reasonable enough to start 'production mode'.

So, enough said, what you need now is sweep the docs and get accustomed with the tools. You can overlook this step but it may cost you later. As always does :)

Welcome, by the way.

#8 OK, I'll take a look at it. Thanks for the info. I had found a couple of max scripts for exporting to dts but they were for max 6 and weren't working right... but what do I know about max scripts LOL!

Thanks.

#9

Quote:Actually it should be F11 for the editor

OOPS. Thanks for the correction.

As for a flat terrain to start with, make a 256 X 256 png that is all medium grey. Save this with a name you know, and place it in creator/terrain imports.
In the mission editor, you can open the terrain editor and use that image as a height field to make a flat terain that you can then edit in the terrain editor.

( F11, F7, operation-->Bitmap-->navigate to your png then apply. )

#10 Great! I spent a good portion of the day yesterday reading documentation. I think I am getting close to importing one of my models but I am concerned that my models may create problems when trying to go from sketchup to max and then torque. I have read some things about multi-sub object materials, grouping etc - I tend to have my sketchup models with groups within groups within groups. Not sure if this will cause a problem. I will try a simple model first, see what happens and then report back here if something goes way wrong.


Thanks for all of your help guys.