Cryengine Next-Gen and Merging T2D and 3D

#61 @Michael Yeah, like a Wolf3D/Doom face-hud thing!

I guess if we do merge the two, there would no longer be a need for a distinction between them, then we could just call it "Torque"

#62 I am so frustrated with the constant comparison of Torque to Unreal, Crytek, Idtech, or Unity. There really is no comparison. The amount of money dumped into those 4 other packages is mind boggling. As far as I know this is not an option for Torque. The amount of work contributed to Torque is based on the generosity of the community. I am stunned however at the efforts people are putting into it. It is very exciting to see what this community has accomplished. But I think its healthier for people to focus on what Torque has to offer now, at this moment. Instead of looking so far off into the future. It's a great start for anyone who wants to write their own game. But that person needs to be a competent programmer who understands what it takes to make a game. You probably should not depend on people in the community. What is interesting to me about looking at the Unreal demos, and how beautiful they are, is that they are usually covering very small areas. While even though they are taking things in the right direction. Consoles and most PC's are not ready for some of the stuff they are offering. Of course it is possible to design around the cost of the art, but other systems will suffer. For example physics and AI. There is a lot more to a game than beautiful art. Think of Torque as a great sandbox to start learning about how to engineer a game. If you want to start working on a triple A title today get Unreal or Crytek. Don't be surprised however about how much work it is to generate art for a triple A title.

But I digress...

#63 Sounds to me like maybe we have a direction for what should be a big focus then? A merger of the two engines?

I've always loved the thought but with virtually no T2D experience, I had no idea if it would be feasible or not. With you all saying it is, maybe this is what should be tackled. Then development could even be more unified, one real engine to focus on. Sounds like a great notion to me.

#64 This is a bit of a sudden left turn :P. I mean, if everyone's really on board with this then sure, we'll have to start looking into it. Honestly, I think T3D has a ways to go on its own before we even start thinking about going all LHC on the codebases. I mean, the idea has come up in discussions before and I'm in no means against it - in fact I think it's a good idea, and probably inevitable. But... now?

Anyway, don't let me rain on your parade. The idea is interesting and I'm keen to see what comes of it. But for now I and the rest of the committee will be getting to work on those outstanding issues for 3.6...

#65 I like the idea of merging the engines, but on the other hand, I would not want to risk making it unstable, by doing so.

#66 @Daniel:

When you talk about issue do you mean this github.com/GarageGames/Torque3D/issues?milestone=2?

#67 While I am definitely interested in a merger of T2D and T3D (mainly for the sprite/GUI of T2D added to T3D), I do believe Daniel speaks with the voice of reason.

Right now, as we speak, the community is and has been pushing forward adding more and more new features to T3D. Things like DX11 support, D3D refactoring, etc. are nothing to be brushed aside as if that wasn't a huge milestone of its own. For this community, that's a very big improvement and I feel that overloading those talented members of the community with this extra request is a bit excessive. Right now, like Danny said, not that it shouldn't be on the horizon as a goal.

Plain and simple, if I knew how to do the merger I'd do it myself. I'm just terrible with source changes ( I generally do any of that with well written instructions ). But as it stands, unless someone can stand up and say, "Hey I'll do that" while the other big players are finishing work on the other rather large projects they are tackling...it could be wise to not target this particular merger just now. I'd aim for after 3.6 personally.

@Mich - Nice, I take it you are getting closer with your personal T2D gui venture? Good on you, man, if you don't inspire anyone else you certainly inspire me.

#68 Mich, maybe you could kind of give us an idea of how it was done pre T3D 1.2..Maybe some people from the community can pick it up and start work on that side of things..
Jesse and Daniel are right though some of the other things that are currently in the works should be completed first..Like the DX9 refactor, and DX 11, Open Gl 3+, assimp, and PhysX 3.3 upgrade, also a few other branches..In which most of it's mainly done :)

#69 Eesh, can of worms.

@JED - I get what you are saying. There are other veteran 2D users who haven't made the jump to T2D MIT for various reasons, be it financial investment in the legacy tech or not having time to update their current projects.

@Jesse - Thanks amigo. The project is picking up, which is good. I just hope it has the impact I'm going after. In addition to making the editors and talking about them here on GG.com, I just got permission from the moderators on Reddit's r/gamedev to post my progress. This is the kind of marketing the engines need. If you go to r/gamedev, it's basically dominated by Unity, Unreal, LibGDX, SFML, and so on. It is rare to find someone mentioning Torque.

@Daniel - Yeah, I didn't expect this swerve either. Maybe it's worth spinning up a new thread to focus on the topic, get the steering committees focused on it, and I can provide as much feedback and advice as I can.

#70 Mich: will do unless someone gets to it first. I should be writing a report right now :P.

Timmy: yes, those are the issues I meant.

All: if you're interested in merging the two engines, I'd see if we can start to align the core systems first. For example, Lukas has been porting TAML to T3D; check out his fork for that. I've also introduced Googletest to T3D, so we can write our unit tests in the same framework; it'd be great to start porting existing tests to gtest. Endless other things I imagine need to happen, as well. I think there are TorqueScript and console API differences, for example. But hey, that's for a new thread.

#71

Quote:Mich, maybe you could kind of give us an idea of how it was done pre T3D 1.2..Maybe some people from the community can pick it up and start work on that side of things..

It's been a quite a while and I was not directly involved with the coding effort. There would be very few takeaways from the last effort that would be useful for a new merge. It's best to start a new thread, discuss the pros and cons, then get into a technical analysis.

#72 Mich: posting on /r/gamedev is a great idea. It's a great community, and large. Shame /r/t3d is a bit dead :P.

#73 @raa brubb - When everyone thinks of Unity they think it is the free version that is making these games. It isn't. Really, there is no free version. Basic Unity is easy to use but it is only faster if you buy the solutions, the same as the game kits on the Torque store. When I was talking about Superhot, yes they did it quick but that was done with Unity pro and not free, and all that time freeze stuff and the level building tool were no doubt bought in the asset store. I know that kind of stuff as I have most of it myself for fast prototyping.

Can you make commercial games in Unity free: No! Why? Because by the time you buy the plugins to make it work you may as well have bought the pro license. Unity 2D in free has no sprite atlaser and lacks a fair few other things needed to be of any use. Again, anyone who has made games in it has bought plugins to do so, in which case it's not really free is it?

T2D as it is now is a fully functional 2D engine and better than the Unity option. Garbage collection is a nightmare in Unity and on mobiles without pro making a decent sized game is problematical. Pro for PC/MAC, iOS and Android would cost $4500 big leap for a hobbyist developer. It would cost the same per developer on a team.

With Unity free is it possible to make Steve Acaster's game? No, unless you buy the plugins. Could I make that game with Unity Pro. Yes, but it would look the same for a starting price of $1500. If I wanted to really polish it up, the shader packs would cost at least $125, a really good particle plugin would be $60, a good quality AAA shadow system would be $100. To create a really good looking game quickly in Unity would set you back probably $1500 on top of the pro license just for the plugins to bring the engine up to scratch. Steve has already started to polish the game more and it won't cost him that much, he just needs to spend time and effort.

Unity is easy to use and fast, but only if you spend the money to buy in the solutions. It is the availability of stuff on the asset store which is the big decider for many companies. Without paying for all those kits and plugins Unity is no faster than Torque. It is easier but someone already proposed the solution when he talked about putting in a component system, and that got nowhere.

The reasons I use an engine are different from Hobbyists, it's how I make my living so I need a lot of out of the box solutions and plugins that will cost money but save time. That's why I first got into the Torque engines because with the store at the time it looked like it was the right choice. Garagegames was there before everyone else, it was no-one's fault it panned out the way it did.

However, the next job is to re-skin a PC game for a company that have their own game engine and that's the way this business is, being loyal to any one game engine over another to me is like having an emotional connection with a hammer. Doesn't make any sense. The only thing that effects my judgements on what or what not to use is the situation of the industry and where things are leading and my own understanding of what will be the impact on my ability to put food in front of my kids.

#74 Pros and Cons of the proposed T3D and T2D Merge thread.