What in the World?
by William Shellman · in Game Design and Creative Issues · 08/08/2009 (9:07 pm) · 4 replies
Greetings,
I'm a beginner at the Terrain Editor and I have some questions on it. I am using "Torque Game Engine SDK 1.4.2 . I am trying to create an open world game on the lines of "Grand Theft Auto" and I need to know if it is possible with Torque. I am aware that the terrain has limits, but there must be a way to create a world in which you can travel cross country or continent. I have not seen any tutorials on such a method, so I am wondering if it is a matter of linking missions together using the same layout of terrain. For example, say you have a mission in one particular city, and other missions in that same city, say 15, but different locations. Then, you have more missions in another city, say 15. Would you have to create a city within the boundaries of the Terrain Editor (the yellow boundary), the create a new terrain, create a new city, then join them using triggers and such? Or is it possible to affect the terrain beyond the bounds of the Editor without disturbing the previously altered terrain (within the yellow boundary). Any help here would be greatly appreciated.
I'm a beginner at the Terrain Editor and I have some questions on it. I am using "Torque Game Engine SDK 1.4.2 . I am trying to create an open world game on the lines of "Grand Theft Auto" and I need to know if it is possible with Torque. I am aware that the terrain has limits, but there must be a way to create a world in which you can travel cross country or continent. I have not seen any tutorials on such a method, so I am wondering if it is a matter of linking missions together using the same layout of terrain. For example, say you have a mission in one particular city, and other missions in that same city, say 15, but different locations. Then, you have more missions in another city, say 15. Would you have to create a city within the boundaries of the Terrain Editor (the yellow boundary), the create a new terrain, create a new city, then join them using triggers and such? Or is it possible to affect the terrain beyond the bounds of the Editor without disturbing the previously altered terrain (within the yellow boundary). Any help here would be greatly appreciated.
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#2
08/11/2009 (10:01 am)
O.K. Konrad! So then each mission within the one city could be all done together, and missions in other cities would have to be created by adding triggers to move from one terrain to another? For example, if the player completes all of one city's missions, you would need a trigger to travel, say across a large long bridge (GTA style), and unlock a new terrain and city with missions in it? Furthermore, you would need to create 2 seperate mission terrains and link the togther through the triggers? So, I would place the trigger for the journey at the end of the bridge to the city I am in, then another trigger at the end where I wish to enter the new area? In other words, create however many mission areas I need individually, then link them together with triggers, but I cannot create them all in the one Torque terrain? They must be done one at a time, then stitched togerther? I am still having difficulty understanding how to make more than one mission area on the Torque terrain. 
#3
When you're done, you make the triggers load a new mission - depending on which area your trigger transfers your player to. You need to make sure that the player does not arrive into a mission's trigger zone, otherwise it will keep on loading new missions for you. :)
It's basically having a number of totally separate levels in a game. You don't let the player choose a new level to load, you choose it depending on which trigger the player crosses.
Just like you said: Let's say you have a city (say, a mission called "starter_city.mis"). You can leave the city through the western bridge that will take you to New City ("new_city.mis"), but you can also leave your city through a road to the south that will take you to the desert ("desert.mis").
You put a trigger on the bridge, and set the name of the mission where it leads to ("new_city.mis"). You also need to set the coordinates where you will spawn in "new_city.mis" when it loads (or you can just use spawnspheres). Upon entering the trigger, you load the mission for New City. Same goes for the desert. So you only use a trigger to leave a city. Again, make sure not to set the spawn position where it's inside a trigger that would send you to another mission.
08/11/2009 (10:13 am)
Yes, you're right. So you create one mission. Put triggers to where you can enter and leave the area. When you're done, you create a new mission from scratch, and do the same.When you're done, you make the triggers load a new mission - depending on which area your trigger transfers your player to. You need to make sure that the player does not arrive into a mission's trigger zone, otherwise it will keep on loading new missions for you. :)
It's basically having a number of totally separate levels in a game. You don't let the player choose a new level to load, you choose it depending on which trigger the player crosses.
Just like you said: Let's say you have a city (say, a mission called "starter_city.mis"). You can leave the city through the western bridge that will take you to New City ("new_city.mis"), but you can also leave your city through a road to the south that will take you to the desert ("desert.mis").
You put a trigger on the bridge, and set the name of the mission where it leads to ("new_city.mis"). You also need to set the coordinates where you will spawn in "new_city.mis" when it loads (or you can just use spawnspheres). Upon entering the trigger, you load the mission for New City. Same goes for the desert. So you only use a trigger to leave a city. Again, make sure not to set the spawn position where it's inside a trigger that would send you to another mission.
#4
Say you have the downtown area created. Then you make a mission named "Hell's Gate.mis!" Then you have the Western section of the city where the mission ends. How can I make the 2 sections of the city appear simultaneously on the screen, and the mission travel from the first section to the second section? Will I have to make the 2 sections seperately, or can I make them on one terrain together? Would I need a trigger for that to happen as well? And would I have to best guess as to where the roadways and such would line up so that it would look like it was one whole city and not sections? I realize I'm being a pain in the butt, but I just like to know the entire process for making an open world feel, and I don't want to have pauses between sections.
08/13/2009 (10:04 am)
Thanks, Konrad! So, what if I don't have enough room within the terrain boundary to place my city. It is a very large group of structures and I can barely fit the downtown area in the borders. I still have a great deal more to add to it and the landscape I wish to build begins to change just outside the downtown area. How can I make the entire city fit within the boundaries? I have not seen any type of documentation which describes how to enlarge the terrain borders. I would like it to be an open world game, at least within each city. Is there any way to sculpt the surrounding terrain outside the boundary without having it repeat the changes? Or is it doomed to only making one mission terrain at a time? Also, if I must create a city one section at a time, can I use the same mission setup (the city section I have already created) to create a series of different missions? I'll try to explain that!Say you have the downtown area created. Then you make a mission named "Hell's Gate.mis!" Then you have the Western section of the city where the mission ends. How can I make the 2 sections of the city appear simultaneously on the screen, and the mission travel from the first section to the second section? Will I have to make the 2 sections seperately, or can I make them on one terrain together? Would I need a trigger for that to happen as well? And would I have to best guess as to where the roadways and such would line up so that it would look like it was one whole city and not sections? I realize I'm being a pain in the butt, but I just like to know the entire process for making an open world feel, and I don't want to have pauses between sections.
Associate Konrad Kiss
Bitgap Games
Creating an open world game such as GTA is definitely possible with TGE, but not right out of the box. You will probably need to make heavy modifications to the engine.
On one hand the terrain that's available in TGE 1.4.2 might prove to be too small for what you'd like to achieve.
Another problem you will encounter is how to handle so many objects on such a large scene. You will need to implement terrain and object streaming.
TGEA has the streaming Atlas terrain built in (although in 1.8.1 you will need to recompile the engine to work with it), but not object streaming.
If you don't mind the loading between missions / cities / districts, you could certainly use triggers and load one mission after another - that'd deifinitely work with TGE 1.4.2 as is.
The legacy terrain is very limited. I am not sure whether having more than one terrain in TGE 1.4.2 brings up any issues or not, but it would heavily impact your framerate if you added more than one terrain block.
TGEA comes with a solution called MegaTerrain which is a 2D array of legacy terrains - seemlessly editable. This seemlessness would be hard to achieve in TGE if you used more than one terrain block - as far as I know.