Torque 3D Development - Release!!!
by Brett Seyler · 09/28/2009 (10:33 pm) · 335 comments
We're finally here. Release day!
Download the Torque 3D 1.0 release from your account now!
It's been a bit quiet for the past month while we sprint to the finish. I've been in Europe demoing Torque 3D to publishers, studios and the press (you'll hear more about this soon). Meanwhile, the whole team here has been putting in a monster effort to bring you the most stable, solid release of Torque ever.
If you've already made the jump, you know that this is a whole new breed of Torque. The tools are ground breaking for development productivity. The content pipeline gets your art into Torque at light speed and live asset updating lets you iterate on your content in tools of your choice and watch them update in Torque instantly.
What's Inside
If you've been following these dev blogs, you've seen almost every feature of Torque demonstrated first hand. You can also find all these details neatly organized on the Torque 3D page as well. So down to details...here's what's in this release:Engine Advanced Lighting* Particle System Revamped Terrain System COLLADA Import Pipeline Audio API Improved Material System Improved Skinned Mesh Performance PostFX System* Improved Water Blocks and Planes Physics (via PhysX)* Live Asset Updating New Tools River Editor Road Editor Datablock Editor Decal Editor Particle Editor Material Editor Shape Editor Viz Toggles Collada Exporter (for Interiors) Improved Tools Terrain Editor Terrain Painter Object Editor GUI Editor | Publishing** Windows (D3D) OSX (OGL) Web (FF, IE, Chrome, Safari) Projects PhysX: Cloth FPS Example: Burg * Limited or N/A on OSX ** Console licenses for all major platforms available separately. Contact licensing@torquepowered.com for details. |
FPS Example? Yes. If you've been a part of the beta groups, you've seen "FPS Genre Kit" as a project in previous builds (including Beta 5). We are planning to build out a much more robust and complete for-pay "FPS Genre Kit" (with improved functionality and documentation), but we want to minimize confusion between the projects. "FPS Example" has all of the same functionality as "FPS Genre Kit" from the betas. What you're seeing here is less content, but primarily a renaming.
Now, some of you are wondering "what's Burg?" Here is your answer...
In a couple weeks, we'll also be releasing Rasmus Deguchi's War Machine demo. Check it out here:
What about...
Gerhard's stuff
From the beginning, we've been very impressed with Gerhard was able to do with older version of Torque. I had hoped to ship Torque 3D with at least one demo of his stuff, but we encountered a few obstacles. Gerhard lost the artist he was working with and on the programming side, we struggled to keep his projects compatible with the Torque core, particularly GFX. Demos like "Wetness", "Depth of Field", "SSAO", and "Soft Particles" all showcase some great artwork and clever extension of Torque. We now have all these technical features in this release and neatly integrated in the PostFX system, with the exception of Wetness. We're going to follow up on that and build a nicer, more flexible implementation of Wetness into PostFX. See the discussion of that here. Much <3 to Pat Wilson and Sickhead for doing all this kickass PostFX stuff, including Light Rays, Scatter Sky and yes, even lens flares / coronas.
Undercity Demo
The Undercity Demo was built primarily to show at GDC last March. We're really proud of what Logan put together for us and we're looking at doing more work on this demo before releasing it either as part of the forthcoming FPS Genre Kit, or as a FPS Example.
Pacific Demo / Forest Kit
The Pacific Demo is built using Sickhead Games' Forest Kit foliage technology add-on. The Forest Kit is slated for a release to coincide with Torque 3D 1.1. This branch is already being actively worked on and you'll hear more about both the 1.1 release and the Forest Kit add-on in the coming weeks. Tom's already posted a nice teaser showing ground cover materials being properly lit by both Advanced Lighting, and Basic Lighting, all with wind animation.
Barricade Demo
The Barricade Demo was originally built to show off Torque technology circa 2006. Yikes. Sickhead Games are working on an updated version of this to be released in the near future.
Warrior Camp Demo
We never got to a point where we were satisfied with the way this looked, so it's been paused until we decide what (if anything) we want to do with it.
Luma's Racing Kit
Still in the works! Luma's been jamming on all kinds of other cool projects, including Rev, but they are working on finishing the Racing Kit in the next few months.
How is Torque 3D licensed?
The Torque 3D 1.x license is currently posted on the Torque 3D page. You can view it there. This document governs the Professional and Studio licenses. You'll find no reference to the "Basic." Why? As I've mentioned on several occasions where it's come up, we were never really hot on the spec for "Basic." It confuses the primary product spec ("Professional" and "Studio" share identical features) in creating a feature delta and frankly, the number of people who've jumped on the "Professional" license has convinced us that a "Basic" version is not really needed. What you'll see contemplated in the EULA we've posted is an "Artist" version instead. What we're considering here is offering a binary only, full-featured version of Torque 3D for $500 / seat. Discounts for owning prior versions of Torque would apply.If you'd like to make your opinion known, log your vote in the form below. We'll defer making a final decision about this for at least a month or two.
No matter what the results, there will be other changes to the Torque product line up as well. Biggest of all, as of November 1st, 2009, past versions of Torque (TGEA, TGE) will no longer be available for purchase.
What's Next?
A couple weeks ago we spun up an official Torque 3D 1.1 branch for work in parallel to the 1.0 release. The primary goals for the 1.1 release are:1. Performance and optimization
This will mostly be targeted at improving Advanced Lighting (shadows), but the uber geniuses at Sickhead and GameClay keep coming up with ways to get cycles back all over the place. Don't be surprised to see huge improvements (over the already great performance) on mainstream hardware and embedded devices in the next couple releases.
2. Usability improvements
We've a bevy of new tools and we're not silly enough to think we did everything perfect the first, second (or 50th) time, so go, use them. Tell us what you like and don't like. We'll keep improving until they are as perfect as they can be.
3. Particle System refactor
This has been in the works for months actually and Pat (with the help of pureLIGHT) is preparing a fully awesomed-out particle system for 1.1. I'll save going into the spec for a separate blog, but it's going to be all kinds of hawt. Here's Pat showing off wiring up 150 point lights in a PhysX "Lightfall."
4. Core improvements necessary for compatibility with Forest Kit
These are ongoing, but expected to wrap with 1.1 and coincide with the much anticipated release of Forest Kit by Sickhead.
5. OSX feature parity
We're obviously a *little* disappointed we weren't able to get Advanced Lighting to run well enough on OSX to ship with this release (see Alex Scarborough's forum post on Advanced Lighting for details), but we're confident that Torque 3D is the best game engine ever released for OSX games. Basic Lighting (what you're seeing in the Burg Demo) is really a very advanced, very fast forward renderer capable of more than any previous lighting system we've had. Objects and materials can recieve up to 4 lights at a time and each light can cast projected shadows optionally. We'd also like find a workable cross-platform solution for physics. PhysX supports everything *except* for OSX, so we're likely to look at Bullet in the next few months. In all likelyhood, we may never achieve feature parity, but we'll push OSX as hard as it can be pushed for you guys, and then we'll push it harder.
The developer community is already on Torque 3D in a big way. Here are some highlights from past weeks you might not have seen. As always, cool, well made stuff contributed back will go into the core for everyone to use.
Special thanks to Sickhead Games for contributing more to this release than I thought possible. You guys rock!
Torque 3D development blogs:
- Post #1 - Kickoff
- Post #2 - Apparatus and Warrior Camp
- Post #3 - Luma's racing kit
- Post #4 - Josh Engebretson and Web Publishing
- Post #5 - Pricing and Licensing
- Post #6 - Pricing and Licensing CONTINUED
- Post #7 - Wetness & Precipitation
- Post #8 - Screeen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO)
- Post #9 - Matt Langley and the Torque Launcher
- Post #10 - Chris Robertson and Collada
- Post #11 - Depth of Field
- Post #12 - Advanced Lighting
- Post #13 - Soft Particles
- Post #14 - World Editor
- Post #15 - Pricing and Licensing ANNOUNCED!
- Post #16 - GDC Live Edition
- Post #17 - River & Road Editors
- Post #18 - Beta is UP!
- Post #19 - Light Rays, Undercity, and the Material Editor
- Post #20 - Mass Market Hardware
- Post #21 - Beta: Part Deux
- Post #22 - Marching Towards Beta 3
- Post #23 - pureLIGHT
- Post #24 - Lighting, Terrain, and Cloth
- Post #25 - Beta 3!
- Post #26 - Documentation
- Post #27 - Beta 4!
- Post #28 - Shape Editor
- Post #29 - Beta 5!
- Post #30 - Collada Import GUI Dialog
- Post #31 - 1.0 Release!!!
- Post #32 - Coming Soon!
About the author
Since 2007, I've done my best to steer Torque's development and brand toward the best opportunities in games middleware.
#42
The use of stray bullet guns. They leak quickly fired by MOUSE. T3D will collapse
09/29/2009 (12:45 am)
T3d has a big bug.......The use of stray bullet guns. They leak quickly fired by MOUSE. T3D will collapse
#43
http://www.garagegames.com/products/torque-3d-tgea
09/29/2009 (12:45 am)
TGEA can be found here, Daniel.http://www.garagegames.com/products/torque-3d-tgea
#44
09/29/2009 (12:46 am)
I just happened to stop at the computer on the way to the fridge for a beer and saw the tweet pop up. Congrats guys, you've done a hell of a job. 
#45
09/29/2009 (12:58 am)
Last 4 Post are lost. FYI: 44 should be three pages. only accessible via email direct link. 
#47
09/29/2009 (1:10 am)
Behold! Page 3!
#48
09/29/2009 (1:18 am)
Whoa! GG.com goes up to three pages, no way! 
#49
ok this is just BS im my opinion, maybe its honest BS from the GG standpoint..
Quote
"The truth of the matter is we don't want to be "The cheap engine." We don't want the perception of being "a step above open source but a mile away from Unreal." We want customers who look at the Torque 3D's feature set, look at Torque 3D's tools and art pipeline, compare them with other commercial engines and choose Torque because it is an incredible [u]value[/u]-- not because it is cheap."
So anyone that hasnt upgraded to TGE or TGEA pretty much you wont even leave those options there for them as a introductory engine? Cheap or not. Its a good engine for young or novice game makers that can and need a less intuitive engine. By calling it a "cheap engine", i think you just made the last 9 years of work from V12 to TGEA just a bit more tarnished, from your own words. Its not a cheap engine, i wouldnt have bought T3d myself if i though otherwise.
Now i am also one who see the value in the other engines for several reasons, products havent been updated for t3d.. so we have to wait how long before we see updates to these products? 6 months another year, mean while resources move farther and farther until a community member decides to update them. Is this how GG repays its community of its years of service "Sorry folks, we dont want to be called the cheap engine, so were going to cut out the cheap stuff, and only sell the one engine" Thats what i am hearing. And what kind of gaurentee that the same thing wont happen with T3d that happened with tge and tgea, where resources and packs were released, but the makers were no longer able to support them. What about folks that have been waiting for other updates a big one that comes to mind is AFX.
AFX we have been waiting on TGEA 2.0 for a length of time now, alot todo with GGs own timeline as Jeff tries to get AFX caught up with T3D and the varies updates of TGEA. Now we have to take out cheap engine, and those without a license might face not only the t3d price tag, but also the AFX upgrade. its a bit much dont you think?
09/29/2009 (1:22 am)
@Davey Jackson..ok this is just BS im my opinion, maybe its honest BS from the GG standpoint..
Quote
"The truth of the matter is we don't want to be "The cheap engine." We don't want the perception of being "a step above open source but a mile away from Unreal." We want customers who look at the Torque 3D's feature set, look at Torque 3D's tools and art pipeline, compare them with other commercial engines and choose Torque because it is an incredible [u]value[/u]-- not because it is cheap."
So anyone that hasnt upgraded to TGE or TGEA pretty much you wont even leave those options there for them as a introductory engine? Cheap or not. Its a good engine for young or novice game makers that can and need a less intuitive engine. By calling it a "cheap engine", i think you just made the last 9 years of work from V12 to TGEA just a bit more tarnished, from your own words. Its not a cheap engine, i wouldnt have bought T3d myself if i though otherwise.
Now i am also one who see the value in the other engines for several reasons, products havent been updated for t3d.. so we have to wait how long before we see updates to these products? 6 months another year, mean while resources move farther and farther until a community member decides to update them. Is this how GG repays its community of its years of service "Sorry folks, we dont want to be called the cheap engine, so were going to cut out the cheap stuff, and only sell the one engine" Thats what i am hearing. And what kind of gaurentee that the same thing wont happen with T3d that happened with tge and tgea, where resources and packs were released, but the makers were no longer able to support them. What about folks that have been waiting for other updates a big one that comes to mind is AFX.
AFX we have been waiting on TGEA 2.0 for a length of time now, alot todo with GGs own timeline as Jeff tries to get AFX caught up with T3D and the varies updates of TGEA. Now we have to take out cheap engine, and those without a license might face not only the t3d price tag, but also the AFX upgrade. its a bit much dont you think?
#50
for the moment im trying to buy the upgrade of TGEA, but with this url:
www.garagegames.com/products/torque-3d-tgea
show me the upgrade to T3D, nor TGEA, is a bug?
09/29/2009 (1:23 am)
@Davey, i understand you, i think that T3D is great!!!..., ill buy it in the future..., great work guys!!! ;-Dfor the moment im trying to buy the upgrade of TGEA, but with this url:
www.garagegames.com/products/torque-3d-tgea
show me the upgrade to T3D, nor TGEA, is a bug?
#51
09/29/2009 (1:24 am)
Yay! Still so much to wait for though ... Forest kit , wetness, etc ... I still can't shake that feeling like I'm 8 years old again and waiting for Santa 
#52
09/29/2009 (1:28 am)
good stuff guys, still saving up, i will get it eventually :). congrats. 
#53
09/29/2009 (1:33 am)
Congrats to my former GG comrades, Sickhead, Rene, Chris, and whomever I missed in this moment of pure developer's ecstasy. 
#54
09/29/2009 (1:36 am)
Edward, he didn't call TGE or TGEA cheap engines, he said that he doesn't want Torque to have the perception of "the cheap engine". He in no way devalued past efforts by that statement. 
#55
Technically, however, I would have to say that the FPS Example contains almost all of the functionality of the FPS Genre Kit -- but who's gonna quibble about that with all of the uber tools and "shiny" that Torque3d empowers you with.
09/29/2009 (1:44 am)
Awesomeness unveiled. Congratulations and a toast to everyone who was involved :DTechnically, however, I would have to say that the FPS Example contains almost all of the functionality of the FPS Genre Kit -- but who's gonna quibble about that with all of the uber tools and "shiny" that Torque3d empowers you with.
#56
09/29/2009 (1:51 am)
Honestly, I think the price for T3D considering you get the source is a pretty good deal. I mean competing engines with the same features do cost around the same and some don't offer the source. Considering how long T3D will probably be around I am betting that it will be pretty easy to get your money's worth. 
#57
For the record, I'm not protesting the price or the departure of TGE/A. Such things are bound to happen. I'm just not happy about the licensing of T3D, so I will stick with TGEA, which is more than adequate for my needs.
Assuming I can still purchase it :P.
Oh, I forgot to mention - Burg looks awesome! I love the steampunk/classical aesthetic.
09/29/2009 (2:01 am)
I had Javier's problem as well - the TGEA page as linked wants me to upgrade to T3D.For the record, I'm not protesting the price or the departure of TGE/A. Such things are bound to happen. I'm just not happy about the licensing of T3D, so I will stick with TGEA, which is more than adequate for my needs.
Assuming I can still purchase it :P.
Oh, I forgot to mention - Burg looks awesome! I love the steampunk/classical aesthetic.
#58
-- Not because T3D is more "fun" and "fulfilling" heh, you guys really crack me up sometimes.
Let all who read this take note of how many people in this community agree with the decision to no longer sell TGEA and TGE.
ha! no its not silly. this is:
http://www.esenthel.com/?id=features
And its written and maintained by 1 person. Take a look at the feature list if you want a true example of an engine with modern features.
09/29/2009 (2:05 am)
Well honestly, I think GG is intentionally dropping support for TGE and TGEA to purposefully funnel people into the T3D camp who would otherwise have found TGEA more than suitable for their needs.-- Not because T3D is more "fun" and "fulfilling" heh, you guys really crack me up sometimes.
Let all who read this take note of how many people in this community agree with the decision to no longer sell TGEA and TGE.
Quote:
And as of right now Torque 3D is the best engine money can buy.
ha! no its not silly. this is:
http://www.esenthel.com/?id=features
And its written and maintained by 1 person. Take a look at the feature list if you want a true example of an engine with modern features.
#59
@Josh
Not to forget all the good stuff you've put in there!
@Edward
You have my vote... for getting a solid reprimand by the board admin. Voicing your opinion is absolutely fine and you do have a point in there, but starting out by calling a sincere statement of another person "bullshit" is just not the way.
Strong opinions are okay, too, but politeness always goes first.
(Yeah, own guilt admitted)
09/29/2009 (2:06 am)
@Josh
Not to forget all the good stuff you've put in there!
@Edward
You have my vote... for getting a solid reprimand by the board admin. Voicing your opinion is absolutely fine and you do have a point in there, but starting out by calling a sincere statement of another person "bullshit" is just not the way.
Strong opinions are okay, too, but politeness always goes first.
(Yeah, own guilt admitted)
#60
09/29/2009 (2:17 am)
OK so I haven't read through all three pages of comments and I am sure there will be many more pages to come. But I have a problem with this. What about teams like mine who are staffed entirely by volunteers. We are using TGEA 1.8.1 for our game (we've just upgraded to this version of the engine, we can't handle another 10 months to upgrade again, we've spent more time upgrading than we have developing lately, and we're done upgrading - no more upgrading to another FPS engine. If we change again, it will be to an engine that is actually designed from the ground up to be made for MMOGs). So suppose we have volunteers that come along in November, or December, or June of 2010 or whatever... and they need the TGEA source to be able to work on our game for us which means they need a TGEA license. How are they supposed to get a legal license if the engine is no longer available? I am not psychic, I can't possibly know in the next 32 days who is going to join my team over the course of the next 4-5 years that is going to need a TGEA license and alert them to the emergency status of obtaining a license immediately. We are not upgrading to T3D. It's too expensive for a volunteer team. And I am Not interested in arguing about what a great deal it is. We talked about it intently and there are too many financial issues for us to justify it for our particular team, the cost vs. benefit ratio just doesn't balance out for us. So what allowances do you make for teams like ours to obtain legal TGEA licenses for future developers? 
Torque 3D Owner Davey Jackson
Default Studio Name
We didn't make the decision to sunset these products lightly, as Brett mentioned TGE has very few sales these days, but more importantly TGE and TGEA are no longer representative of Torque. If someone is new to game development and has limited income we want their first experience to be fun, fulfilling and up to date with modern development methods. TGE and TGEA have served their time well and they opened the door for a number of indies and hobbyists to get into game development. But in the 8 years since we launched TGE a lot has changed about the way games are made and developer's expectations of what an engine should do has changed as well.
Working with Torque 3D is a completely new experience from working with TGE and TGEA. We want new users first interaction with Torque to fun and fulfilling. We feel we can provide that experience much better with Torque 3D than with TGE or TGEA.
I know a number of you have expressed concerns about the price, that if Torque had been $1000 when you purchased it, you wouldn't have bought it and that leaving by our $100 roots behind we'll be loosing out on a big market. We've discussed these issues in length both internally and directly with the community as well.
The truth of the matter is we don't want to be "The cheap engine." We don't want the perception of being "a step above open source but a mile away from Unreal." We want customers who look at the Torque 3D's feature set, look at Torque 3D's tools and art pipeline, compare them with other commercial engines and choose Torque because it is an incredible value-- not because it is cheap.
Will we have less total customers without TGE and TGEA? Perhaps, but I don't think so. I think instead we are going to see an influx of new developers and content creators who are amazed by what Torque 3D provides out-of-the-box and are excited to bring their ideas to life with our engine.
This is a great day for Torque! This is a great day for the community!
And as of right now Torque 3D is the best engine money can buy.