iTGB 1.2 ETA

#1 We haven't nailed down a date for 1.2 yet, but the iTGB devs are working diligently on the update.

Mat is one of the devs, but is a contractor. I agree their support in the forums and e-mail have been invaluable and I really appreciate that effort.

#2 Ok Michael,

i know you haven't nailed down a date but you have been hinting all over that you guys are nearly ready with 1.2 the last week or 2.

can we at least be given a rough estimate? I am just about ready to release my game, but might wait if the speed is greatly improved...

#3 I should be getting the final build sometime today or tomorrow. Then I have to do QA pass on it and update the docs, which might take another few days.

That's the most I can say, since I have multiple tasks to accomplish in addition to an iTGB release.

However, I've said it before: if you have a game ready for release, just release it. You can always patch it.

#4 One thing that I'd really like to see in 1.2 is the ability to use resources.

#5 Any news?

#6 I spoke with Mitch today and I asked him the same question.Hhe still has a lot of documentation to cover. Probably not gonna come in a few weeks. Maybe next month at the earliest

#7 Documentation is secondary to tech improvements. Eager customers waiting!

#8 lovely.... different stories from different people... sigh.. diversion

#9 Well, it does say on his business card "Documentation Engineer" .. .

#10 It is unanimously agreed at GG that documentation from me takes priority over everything else. I've made a lot of big promises about Torque 3D's documentation, as well as all other Torque tech docs for 2009. As Ronald said, that's why I was hired.

#11 any news?

#12 What's the point of implementing new technologies if we don't know how to use it? Documentation is just as important as the technologies themselves, in my opinion.
Well constructed documentation results in a more effective and complete usage of the engine's functionality

#13 @Eaymon - I'm aiming for the 1.2 release this week.

@Ronald - Glad we see eye to eye =)

Dave was partly right. The tech has to be finished, but the product isn't properly released unless documentation accompanies it. At any rate, keep your eyes peeled for another iTorque blog. I just blogged about the iTGE update.

#14 @Mitch -- I read somewhere "Read. Read code. Code." Time allocation for that is 45-45-10. :^)

#15 Great to hear Michael! Look forward to see what improvements come with the next release of iTGB. Keep up the great work.

Dane

#16 any word if the pvr issue with celled sprite sheets is fixed? Right now if you try to use a pvr celled sprite sheet, it returns an error (doesn't matter if the pvr tool provided with itgb is used, or the apple one is used)

#17 @Geoff - I talked to the devs about this issue recently. It appears that the way TGB manages/renders each cell in memory completely conflicts with how PVR works. Let's say you have an image that contains 4 cells. TGB will generate 4 separate image blocks out of that one sheet (obviously). The PVR data cannot be split in such a way. This would require a complete rewrite of the cell system.

So, at this point there is not a fix and it is not advised.

#18 Sorry if this sound harsh, please don't take it personal, but I fail to see why this should be "obviously" unless there was the word "stupid" missing after.

The idea is to have that stuff on 1 texture and do UV based framing, as you otherwise get more distinct textures, which is an inacceptable deoptimization for a platform like the iphone.

The devs don't put things on one image to reduce the number of distinct textures to have the engine destroy that optimization again.


If this is how it works right now, that would be another thing that needs to be fixed asap (together with the tilemap and particle rendering implementation problems pointed out)

#19 "Obviously" as in this has how TGB has managed this functionality in the past, before it was a consideration for a mobile platform utilizing less popular formats such as PVR. Now, I could be describing how TGB reads the information and renders completely wrong, so I will look into this further.

I can see how this is an issue, but I do not see this being fixed in time for the 1.2 release.

#20 Blimey, PVR is still broken. That makes me a sad panda. Don't tell me script to code is still a necessity!