Torque 1.1 Is Gold!

We are proud to announce the release of Torque 3D 1.1. This version is the most stable version of Torque since TGE and the visuals are well beyond anything we have ever released. It’s a great time to be a T3D owner and we encourage you to spread the word to everyone who wants to be part of the lowest price, royalty free, full source, professional grade game engine and tools. Our community is strong and supports each other, and in addition, we have done a lot in this release to help new users reach their goals -whether it is making games for a living, learning how to make games, or both. Enjoy!

Hitting our Stride

As part of my job, I get to talk with many talented people. One of my favorite questions is to ask if they have ever been a part of a company where things seem to “click”; I usually follow up with why they thought that was the case. It is surprising that many people cannot relate and I admit that I can only count a few experiences in my past where things felt “right”.

This release marks one of those times for me, which is amazing considering how many new people we have working together. The energy here is palpable and visible in our work. People worked late because they want to make the release our best -not because we mandated it. We quibble about details because we really care and are we are dedicated to finishing our commitments on time. Erik Graham and I had a two and half hour discussion on two Sunday mornings ago about last minute polish and fixes that Scott, Mich, and I worked on until midnight on the previous Saturday night. That is how we get things done, and while it’s hard, it’s also very rewarding.

And while it’s not my style to be boastful, it is part of my job, and I am really, really, proud of the team and the release. They pulled together a release that spans across many functions of the business with very little schedule slippage (around 13 days from when we had our first solid schedule). This is a great release for us, the code looks better than ever, and it is just the beginning for a team of people, many of whom have never worked together.

So what parts of the business were involved in the release?

Engine – We fixed all known crashes in our tools except for one known issue in the gui editor (I’ll post the fix...it just didn’t make the last round by a few hours). In a herculean effort, Rene rewrote zones and portals because the old system was too brittle and he wanted to get it right for our users. We’ve fixed hundreds upon hundreds of bugs (248 confirmed fixes) and performance issues since beta 3. This is the most stable version of Torque since TGE and our QA team of four has done an amazing job! Special thanks also to those who provided feedback and reproduction cases in our forums from the preview we released almost two months ago.

Documentation & Tutorials –A team of eight reviewed all of our user guides and tutorials and we made thousands of updates. We’ve added three new tutorials: Changing the Player, Deploying to Web, and Client/Server Architecture. And if that wasn’t enough, we rebuilt the T3D section of our web-site to house the updated and existing information.

Web-Site – We completely overhauled the T3D section of our web-site. We now provide T3D specific forums, add-on & resource page, on-line API documentation, and tutorials. My particular favorite new area is the Getting Started guide, a section that will help new users get up and running quickly. We’ve updated all of the marketing information with some of our new amazing art. Which leads me to my next topic…

Art & Demos – Pacific, Deathball Desert, and Sector T3D are the crown jewels of this release. You can get lost in Pacific’s volcano, tunnels, and hidden areas and Sector T3D does a great job showing off how well our postFXs bring together a stylized, directed look. Drive the Cheetah, a wheeled vehicle in an updated Deathball Desert. We have also added a new bad-ass character and a updated weapon. And because we listen, we decided to provide the Max files so that you have full access to the rigging and animation work being done before we export to Collada. All of these levels are finished with our new MLAA implementation, which brings a smooth look to edges; deferred rendering AA isn’t possible with native DX9 AA implementations.

Download our demos now!

Mac & Binary
As we previously mentioned, a Mac and Binary update will lag behind this release. We’ve done a lot to update the code base for OS X, but we have been challenged to find the developers who could keep pace with the PC development. If you know a good OS X focused graphics guru, have them contact us at jobs@garagegames.com. The binary version will be shipped in about three weeks –but why wait, you can own the full version today.

Closing
We are pleased with our release and we are proud of what Torque 3D has become. And while we enjoy providing free updates, we rely on new users to help us fund new features, products, and community maintenance. If you already own T3D, please enjoy the release. If you haven’t already taken advantage of PureLight’s lightmapping you are missing out. We are running a release only price reduction of $150.00. Also, don’t miss out on a 50% discount on the highly praised Torsion to accelerate your TorqueScript coding. If you like what we have done, tweet your praises, put in a good word on a forum, or simply tell a friend. Every little bit helps us support the software you use. Heck, simply download the wallpapers we posted on the bottom of the T3D product page and display your pride for Torque 3d on your desktop.

If you do not own T3D, now is the time. Buy a license!; Buy two! Support our company. The price is for a limited time and won’t last forever.