Considering buying Torque 2d - Asking questions
by Bob Plymale · in iTorque 2D · 08/12/2009 (3:07 pm) · 1 replies
I have been evaluating different game engines and just now started to look into Torgue 2d for iPhone. After googling, reading a lot of posts on this forum and playing with the Torque 30 day demo I have a couple of questions. $750.00 for something I would not be happy with or support speed the development of to production is a big concern.
1. I have noticed(depending on game) that the stright scripting engine will not work and some straight coding has to been written.
a. Can the code be Objective-C or does it have to be C++?
b. If the need arises how much trouble is it to write the code.(What I mean is convert to C++)
c. How do you know what scripting code needs to be converted?
d. Would you suggest doing all of the GUI in TGB and bypass script and go straight to code?
e. I can only assume that only the game part of the game is done in TGB and all of the menu's, etc in Objective-C iPhone code? In other words can I mix and match both TGB and iPhone buttons, window, labels, etc? Or can I have a iPhone window that a user clicks and starts the TGB application?
I have looked at Cocos2d, oolong and Unity and so far this is the top contender but the script to code(C++ code, I have never done C++, only Objective-C)haqs me a bit concerned.
Am I spending 750 for a GUI builder and all back end I have to code my self?
I am not making any assumptions on this post. I am only going by what I read since I there is no downloaded demo to try.
Thanks in advance.
1. I have noticed(depending on game) that the stright scripting engine will not work and some straight coding has to been written.
a. Can the code be Objective-C or does it have to be C++?
b. If the need arises how much trouble is it to write the code.(What I mean is convert to C++)
c. How do you know what scripting code needs to be converted?
d. Would you suggest doing all of the GUI in TGB and bypass script and go straight to code?
e. I can only assume that only the game part of the game is done in TGB and all of the menu's, etc in Objective-C iPhone code? In other words can I mix and match both TGB and iPhone buttons, window, labels, etc? Or can I have a iPhone window that a user clicks and starts the TGB application?
I have looked at Cocos2d, oolong and Unity and so far this is the top contender but the script to code(C++ code, I have never done C++, only Objective-C)haqs me a bit concerned.
Am I spending 750 for a GUI builder and all back end I have to code my self?
I am not making any assumptions on this post. I am only going by what I read since I there is no downloaded demo to try.
Thanks in advance.
Torque 3D Owner Ronny Bangsund
Torque Cheerleaders
1b: Most TorqueScript of the type you want to speed up (calculations and loops) has 1:1 mappings to C/C++/Obj-C.
1c: Profiling in Instruments (Xcode).
1d: Yes and no - this can be project-dependent.
1e: TGB has its own GUI system - download the TGB trial to play around with it :)
(Getting at the UIWindow isn't so hard, but putting GUIs above *any* OpenGL context has speed issues on the iPhone OS devices.)
A new release of iTGB is near, with a bunch of new features and speedups. We are hoping GG release it this month, as promised in another thread :)
Competition:
Only Cocos2D is a competing engine. The rest are pure 3D engines, so a bit clunky for 2D. If you're looking for full 3D (depth and lighting), iTGE is GG's solution.
Cocos2D for iPhone is very thin, simple and fast. TERRIBLE documentation, but I've had it animate shocking amounts of PVR-compressed sprites. The transition effects are great. Binaries produced are small and fast, and load quickly. Should you want to do 3D, it's basically just a GL canvas ready for programming.
Getting started is harder than iTGB, the file formats seem like afterthoughts, and getting spritesheets going involve more programming than it should (the system seems like the programmer got distracted midway). You'll make a few objects to encapsulate frequently used features with the current releases (0.8.x).
iTGB has editors, and decent ones at that. Tile-based level editor with which you can use to simply plop down objects with or without animations. Good sprite sheet handling, keyed or cell-based. Loads DTS models (somewhat limited?). More code to wade through if you want to hack it.