Torque 3D/GEA Questions
by FragWeapon · in Game Design and Creative Issues · 04/09/2009 (8:26 pm) · 4 replies
First of all I'm assuming all the features from the terrain editor that were in TGEA are in T3D? If so, I figured I could ask a few questions about TGEA since there isn't a full T3D feature list yet (or that I know of).
Ok, so I come from the Doom 3 and UnrealEngine 2/3 modding scene so I'm used to AAA engines.
We're currently in the concept and planning stage of our future game which we hope will be using Torque 3D. It's a fantasy medieval game, which we hope to have large environments and epic kindoms like you'd see in lord of the rings for example. We have the artists to accomplish this, but we're just looking for the proper tech.
So here are a few questions I can't seem to find an answer to:
- With the terrain editor, can I delete polygons on the terrain to make holes, from that I can import my own models to make caves, cliffs etc?
- Since our game will have a lot of caves and cliffs which a lot will be static meshes, we want it to look top-notch. I was wondering if blending multiple textures together is supported in Torque. Essentially would you be able to make terrain in a modeling program like 3DSmax or Maya with full terrain blending etc? What I'd like to accomplish is moss on cliffs and the like.
- Is there a decal system that allows you to put decals on any model?
- Can you put foliage on any model or is that strictly for terrain?
- What is the maximum texture resolution in Torque (especially if you know it for Torque 3D).
- How many polygons on screen would you say Torque could handle at a smooth frame rate on today's top-end computers? We are aiming for a game that can still look nice in a few years from now, the less programming on our part the better.
- Does the terrain (and models if it's possible) only blend diffuse? Or does it blend 'materials' (so basically parallax, normal mapping etc can be blended as well).
- Does Torque support more than one terrain pieces?
- How big can you make your terrain?
- Can the torque world builder build brushes (walls) like in Radiant?
- If you have anything else to tell me about Torque then please tell me :D I'm part of a new team of talented people and we're looking for something basic but with LOTS of depth, and at an affordable price.
If anyone can answer these that would be awesome!
Ok, so I come from the Doom 3 and UnrealEngine 2/3 modding scene so I'm used to AAA engines.
We're currently in the concept and planning stage of our future game which we hope will be using Torque 3D. It's a fantasy medieval game, which we hope to have large environments and epic kindoms like you'd see in lord of the rings for example. We have the artists to accomplish this, but we're just looking for the proper tech.
So here are a few questions I can't seem to find an answer to:
- With the terrain editor, can I delete polygons on the terrain to make holes, from that I can import my own models to make caves, cliffs etc?
- Since our game will have a lot of caves and cliffs which a lot will be static meshes, we want it to look top-notch. I was wondering if blending multiple textures together is supported in Torque. Essentially would you be able to make terrain in a modeling program like 3DSmax or Maya with full terrain blending etc? What I'd like to accomplish is moss on cliffs and the like.
- Is there a decal system that allows you to put decals on any model?
- Can you put foliage on any model or is that strictly for terrain?
- What is the maximum texture resolution in Torque (especially if you know it for Torque 3D).
- How many polygons on screen would you say Torque could handle at a smooth frame rate on today's top-end computers? We are aiming for a game that can still look nice in a few years from now, the less programming on our part the better.
- Does the terrain (and models if it's possible) only blend diffuse? Or does it blend 'materials' (so basically parallax, normal mapping etc can be blended as well).
- Does Torque support more than one terrain pieces?
- How big can you make your terrain?
- Can the torque world builder build brushes (walls) like in Radiant?
- If you have anything else to tell me about Torque then please tell me :D I'm part of a new team of talented people and we're looking for something basic but with LOTS of depth, and at an affordable price.
If anyone can answer these that would be awesome!
#2
- With the terrain editor, can I delete polygons on the terrain to make holes, from that I can import my own models to make caves, cliffs etc?
You can create caves quite easily in TGEA, we have an entire underground sewer system in our game... Cliffs are a little trickier with TGEA although there is Cliffs Construction Kit that Konrad Kiss produced that make this possible. For Torque 3D the new terrain system is supposedly a lot easier to create cliffs out of the box and I can't imagine caves/underground elements will have changed.
- Since our game will have a lot of caves and cliffs which a lot will be static meshes, we want it to look top-notch. I was wondering if blending multiple textures together is supported in Torque. Essentially would you be able to make terrain in a modeling program like 3DSmax or Maya with full terrain blending etc? What I'd like to accomplish is moss on cliffs and the like.
Do you mean on the terrain? Yes you can blend textures on the terrain in TGEA I'm not sure however whether that's changed in Torque 3D, I remember something has changed but can't remember if thats more blended textures available or none.
- Is there a decal system that allows you to put decals on any model?
Yep you can apply decals on models in game.
- Can you put foliage on any model or is that strictly for terrain?
Yep you can have foliage anywhere you like... even on top of buildings if you wished!
- What is the maximum texture resolution in Torque (especially if you know it for Torque 3D).
Not sure if there is a maximum resolution we've used 2048x2048 before but very rarely and to be honest you're not really going to want more than 1024x1024 textures due to the size they take up in VRAM.
- How many polygons on screen would you say Torque could handle at a smooth frame rate on today's top-end computers? We are aiming for a game that can still look nice in a few years from now, the less programming on our part the better.
Not really sure as I've never tested it, we have poly counts that hit around 550k polys and it'll run medium to high spec machines fine, above about 350k and my laptop struggles (it's a built in crappy graphics card), the rendering pipeline in TGEA and Torque 3D is pretty slick.
- Does the terrain (and models if it's possible) only blend diffuse? Or does it blend 'materials' (so basically parallax, normal mapping etc can be blended as well).
There aren't normal maps,etc for terrain in TGEA, unsure about Torque 3D but I doubt it... you have detail textures for terrain, in TGEA you were restricted to 1 detail textures but Torque 3D I believe will allow more.
Why would you want to blend diffuse or any other textures on a model?? When you're creating the texture in the first place you'd just create it how you wanted it to look.
- Does Torque support more than one terrain pieces?
TGEA supported up to 4 terrain pieces, known as Megaterrains and atlas terrain that was a paged terrain from disk that could give you inifinitely large terrain sizes.
Torque3D won't have either of these but comments have been made that the new terrain can be as large as you have the processing power to support so I wouldn't worry about that one.
- How big can you make your terrain?
[see above answer]
- Can the torque world builder build brushes (walls) like in Radiant?
Not sure what Radiant is, with Torque you'd build your wall segments or entire walls in whatever 3d modelling package you wished to use and then use the World Editor to place them... obviously if you've built segments you can just drop them in and build shapes in the editor.
With Torque 3D there will be an add-on forest kit pack that supports more painting type brushes, pick a model and then just drop drop drop where you want - have a look at the GDC demos in the blogs section
04/10/2009 (1:52 am)
A lot of my answers are going to be regarding TGEA and what has been said about Torque 3d we really haven't seen it yet though so don't know exactly how different it is. - With the terrain editor, can I delete polygons on the terrain to make holes, from that I can import my own models to make caves, cliffs etc?
You can create caves quite easily in TGEA, we have an entire underground sewer system in our game... Cliffs are a little trickier with TGEA although there is Cliffs Construction Kit that Konrad Kiss produced that make this possible. For Torque 3D the new terrain system is supposedly a lot easier to create cliffs out of the box and I can't imagine caves/underground elements will have changed.
- Since our game will have a lot of caves and cliffs which a lot will be static meshes, we want it to look top-notch. I was wondering if blending multiple textures together is supported in Torque. Essentially would you be able to make terrain in a modeling program like 3DSmax or Maya with full terrain blending etc? What I'd like to accomplish is moss on cliffs and the like.
Do you mean on the terrain? Yes you can blend textures on the terrain in TGEA I'm not sure however whether that's changed in Torque 3D, I remember something has changed but can't remember if thats more blended textures available or none.
- Is there a decal system that allows you to put decals on any model?
Yep you can apply decals on models in game.
- Can you put foliage on any model or is that strictly for terrain?
Yep you can have foliage anywhere you like... even on top of buildings if you wished!
- What is the maximum texture resolution in Torque (especially if you know it for Torque 3D).
Not sure if there is a maximum resolution we've used 2048x2048 before but very rarely and to be honest you're not really going to want more than 1024x1024 textures due to the size they take up in VRAM.
- How many polygons on screen would you say Torque could handle at a smooth frame rate on today's top-end computers? We are aiming for a game that can still look nice in a few years from now, the less programming on our part the better.
Not really sure as I've never tested it, we have poly counts that hit around 550k polys and it'll run medium to high spec machines fine, above about 350k and my laptop struggles (it's a built in crappy graphics card), the rendering pipeline in TGEA and Torque 3D is pretty slick.
- Does the terrain (and models if it's possible) only blend diffuse? Or does it blend 'materials' (so basically parallax, normal mapping etc can be blended as well).
There aren't normal maps,etc for terrain in TGEA, unsure about Torque 3D but I doubt it... you have detail textures for terrain, in TGEA you were restricted to 1 detail textures but Torque 3D I believe will allow more.
Why would you want to blend diffuse or any other textures on a model?? When you're creating the texture in the first place you'd just create it how you wanted it to look.
- Does Torque support more than one terrain pieces?
TGEA supported up to 4 terrain pieces, known as Megaterrains and atlas terrain that was a paged terrain from disk that could give you inifinitely large terrain sizes.
Torque3D won't have either of these but comments have been made that the new terrain can be as large as you have the processing power to support so I wouldn't worry about that one.
- How big can you make your terrain?
[see above answer]
- Can the torque world builder build brushes (walls) like in Radiant?
Not sure what Radiant is, with Torque you'd build your wall segments or entire walls in whatever 3d modelling package you wished to use and then use the World Editor to place them... obviously if you've built segments you can just drop them in and build shapes in the editor.
With Torque 3D there will be an add-on forest kit pack that supports more painting type brushes, pick a model and then just drop drop drop where you want - have a look at the GDC demos in the blogs section
#3
So, @ Brian, Torque products have their own map/bsp software called Constructor, which is free to download. If you click "My Account" and then go to "Products" it might even be listed, or go here: www.garagegames.com/products/constructor.
You can also use Quark style map makers (Radiant might not allow it's use for commercial projects in it's EULA, I can't remember if it does) or anything that can export a map file, then stick it in Constructor for export to the native DIF file (basically a bsp).
You can also use mesh models for this.
04/10/2009 (6:44 am)
Radiant is basically Constructor for Quake engine games (CoD etc), mapfiles and bsp (DIF).So, @ Brian, Torque products have their own map/bsp software called Constructor, which is free to download. If you click "My Account" and then go to "Products" it might even be listed, or go here: www.garagegames.com/products/constructor.
You can also use Quark style map makers (Radiant might not allow it's use for commercial projects in it's EULA, I can't remember if it does) or anything that can export a map file, then stick it in Constructor for export to the native DIF file (basically a bsp).
You can also use mesh models for this.
#4
@Andy Rollins, there's a few things you mis-understood.
"
Do you mean on the terrain? Yes you can blend textures on the terrain in TGEA I'm not sure however whether that's changed in Torque 3D, I remember something has changed but can't remember if thats more blended textures available or none.
"
I meant on custom models imported from a 3D modeling program. It's possible in other engines, just wondering if torque supports it.
Why would you want to blend diffuse or any other textures on a model?? When you're creating the texture in the first place you'd just create it how you wanted it to look. "
Because the models will be massive in unit size and we can`t have extremely high resolution images, so we`ll tile the rock texture, so if we want to add moss we`re going to need to blend it in. Were not talking a simple wall to make a cliff.
@Steve, that`s great. Thanks a lot!
04/10/2009 (9:50 am)
Thanks for the answers guys. @Andy Rollins, there's a few things you mis-understood.
"
Do you mean on the terrain? Yes you can blend textures on the terrain in TGEA I'm not sure however whether that's changed in Torque 3D, I remember something has changed but can't remember if thats more blended textures available or none.
"
I meant on custom models imported from a 3D modeling program. It's possible in other engines, just wondering if torque supports it.
Why would you want to blend diffuse or any other textures on a model?? When you're creating the texture in the first place you'd just create it how you wanted it to look. "
Because the models will be massive in unit size and we can`t have extremely high resolution images, so we`ll tile the rock texture, so if we want to add moss we`re going to need to blend it in. Were not talking a simple wall to make a cliff.
@Steve, that`s great. Thanks a lot!
Torque Owner Brandon Baker
World Core Studios
www.garagegames.com/community/blog/view/16853/
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