T3D's features?

#1 I'm curious about those too, especially for the gerhard's work.

#2 I've been trying to convert the TGE racing kit to T3D, no luck.

#3 I have also been really wondering about Gerhard's work in particular. A lot of his features are the reason I invested in Torque 3D, I really hope the wetness makes it into Beta 4. It didn't say that it would be a content pack so it will be an out of the box feature (don't let us down GG). Hopefully Brett or someone can chime in. I also hope that his SSAO is what makes it into Torque 3D, it looks MUCH better than the SSAO in there now.

#4 I think a lot of the controls for SSAO are just not exposed yet. There is suppose to be some SSAO love coming out before release so it is hard to say anything till that new work is out.

#5 SSAO is said to be re-written (more control and less resource-hogging). Not sure if it'll make it to B4.

#6 I believe there was a post somewhere around here that mentioned the wetness and precipitation demo was just a shader gerhard threw together, and not technically a "feature" but more of a demo of possibilities. Though a tutorial on how that shader was produced would be cool since that is what also sold me on T3D, which has blown me away even without those other "features" shown on the marketing page.

#7 We I really think the shader should be included, considering it was advertised as a feature.

#8 For those of you that are interested here is a direct quote from micheal perry

Quote:Luma Racing Kit: No
Gerhard Stuff: Some, not all
Wetness & Precipitation: Iffy...

#9 @Kory - All I care is that the stuff they advertised as part of T3D is included for free. I see that Gerhard has AI and some other stuff listed under his bio in the Wetness and Precipitation blog. I don't care if that stuff is a pack, but the Wetness/Precipitation and SSAO were advertised as part of T3D. Don't let me down GG.

#10 Just a thought: If Wetness & Percipitation are "Iffy", I would suggest removing the video for it from the Torque 3D product page.

Unfortunately, Bakudan is correct: Wetness / Percipitation was / is an advertised feature (I don't believe it is directly stated but, the video on the page implies it as a feature)... Hopefully GG will be able to make it in. But in the mean time, they may want to remove the video from the page or add a statement regarding the feature as being "iffy"

#11 It was used as advertisement for T3D even before the actual preorder was possible, also it was linked in with the first T3D page and now is still linked so wetness and precip is definitely a feature of T3D to me, not an addon.

But I think it was mentioned to happen, just not too likely to happen during the beta builds (like the html to texture rendering too)

#12 As Kenneth pointed out in the blog on this same topic, the "Torque 3D" blog series weren't advertisements for features that were promised to be in T3D, they were meant to be a look at the developers and the development process of T3D. The features that were mentioned, especially in the early stages, were feature targets that they were working on, but were subject to being cut.

From the first blog in the series:

Quote:
[...]
2. Shine some light on our development process by exposing feature targets early, even if they end up being cut for the final release.

They also mentioned when the beta was launched that they weren't promising features that weren't specifically stated in the feature chart. Having the video on the sales page is probably a questionable idea, though.

They're also not saying that it's not going to be in the final release, but they're not going to commit to it being there at this point.

#13 @Gerald - There is a big difference between cutting something and making it into an extra fee. If they have to cut something because it eats up too much CPU/GPU time, fine. But, if they advertise the wetness in the way they did and they make it an extra pack, that is a little deceiving. I appreciate that Brett has mentioned in some other blogs that a specific feature will be extra (ie pureLight), but the wetness never had that in the blog anywhere. So if it gets cut, I understand. I just don't want to have to pay extra for something that was advertised as a feature on the T3D page.

#14 I seem to remember (though the old brain ain't what it used to be) someone mentioning in some forum that it (wetness/precep) was having trouble running in T3D rendering pipeline as it was built on TGEA1.7 (alledgedly).

#15 @Bakudan, I agree with you there, though in the end they may not have control over that. As far as I know Gerhard is not a GG employee, so if for whatever reason the integration with T3D falls through, and Gerhard decides that he wants to sell it separately himself, GG probably can't stop him.

I get the feeling that it's really more a matter of getting it to fit in with the rest of the T3D pipeline. That kind of effect combined with screen-space shaders is a tricky proposition. That's just speculation on my part though, hopefully there will be more concrete answers on all of this stuff sometime soon.

#16 I just posted this thread to find out what was going on with T3D, no offense intented! No matter what goes on with it I've purchased a license and will put it to use. I just needed a better understanding of what and what not to expect, so I wouldn't be caught off guard thinking a feature would be in it and it wasn't.

@Gerald off the topic, I love the blog you've posted about learning how to model. One techinque that you use for the glass is "jaw dropping". I was wondering if you would be willing to share how you acheived that glass look. I've been trying for a few monthes with no luck! If you can thanks in advance!

#17 Copy and paste:

Sorry for the short reply all. I usually give more detailed responses, and I apologize for the miscommunication. Wetness & Precipitation is a post processing effect. We already have several of these in the engine, such as DOF, SSAO, Light Rays, etc. These all use the deferred renderer.

The original Wetness effect was pretty, but was written out of line for how our render system worked. That means it has to be rewritten and an artist needs to supply the proper assets to get this to work. The original blog stated we were using his stuff for demos, and whatever was stable enough would make it into Torque 3D. I did not say it was cut, it's just a matter of how it gets in and during what phase. We could deliver this hacked up and bugged, or we can release a stable engine. I think the second option is better.

Through the betas we have been delivering on our promises and the other features, and we are still in BETA. There is no bait and switch, as implied in the blog comments. We did state Gerhard was not an employee and we were leveraging him for high-end demos. The SSAO and DOF that's in right now is going to be cleaned up, but that was not Gerhard code as far as I know.

#18 @Kory,

Thanks. Hopefully I'll get a chance to get back to modeling and continue that series sometime soon. It was a welcome relief to be able to do something new!

As far as the glass effect, it was very similar to how the water works in TGEA; doing a second render-to-texture pass from the perspective of the glass pane and then using a Fresnel shader to blend it with the backbuffer based upon the angle and distance. It probably won't work out of the box on T3D, but I will definitely be porting it over as soon as I get a chance. Once that happens I will be happy to make a resource out of it.

#19 I have to say, the wetness is what sold me on purchasing T3D, but with it or without it I still feel i got more than my money's worth Which was not the case with TGEA for me.

#20 I have to agree with Kenneth Johnston here,

Quote:I have to say, the wetness is what sold me on purchasing T3D, but with it or without it I still feel i got more than my money's worth.

we can make the postFX, if we need one like that, sure its a super effect, but how many of us are creating a game that takes place solely in a raining environment?
my game will have a rainy scene or two, I think now that its kind of like the forest kit, not everyone needs it,
so why include it as standard? (I need it, so I'll be buying it when it is released, regardless of the price, BTW).
and if someone with a bit of forsight does a postFX kit, I'll probably buy that too.