Torque 3D 4.0 Roadmap, Development and You

Torque 3D 4.0 Roadmap, Development and You

Back on September 20, 2012, we launched the MIT licensed version of Torque 3D on GitHub. Then on December 19, 2012, we launched the first new release under open source, version 2.0. And most recently on May 9, 2013, we launched version 3.0. With those releases now behind us, the Torque 3D Steering Committee is now looking to the future.

One of the Steering Committee’s duties is creating and revising Torque 3D’s roadmap. We have a meeting at least once a week to discuss Torque 3D in general, and the near term roadmap has been a formal and informal topic for the last six weeks. During our last meeting on May 27 we finalised what we felt should be in v4.0 roadmap. In this blog, we present to you, the community, our thoughts and ideas on the second roadmap of 2013 for your interest and to comment on.

Roadmap Theme

Spring Cleaning is the theme of the proposed roadmap for T3D v4.0. With this theme in mind we are looking to focus on the following broad topics:

• Documentation and Tutorials
• Bug Fixes
• Modular Templates

Our community has recently seen an influx of new users and, as expected, they are looking for information on getting started. Torque 3D already has a lot of great documentation. Unfortunately, most of it is for the v1.2 commercial version and is out of date. We would like to remedy this situation.

We would also like to continue the work done in T3D v3.0 of cleaning up the included project Templates by getting rid of duplicate scripts and art assets across Templates. We would also like to make it easier to include 3rd party scripts and assets into your own projects. This is where the modular Template work comes in.

We go into more details on both of these topics, and expand on the Steering Committee’s thoughts for the v4.0 roadmap below.

Roadmap Topics

The T3D Steering Committee is suggesting that the following topics be covered for the v4.0 release.


Community Additions
The Torque 3D Steering Committee is made up of Ron Kapaun, Michael Hall and myself. Ron and Michael are community volunteers, and as I’ll talk about later my Torque 3D time will be very limited for v4.0. This means that we need all of your help to continue development of Torque 3D. In the past we’ve always said that you, the community, should help out in whatever way you feel you can.

This time around, we’re going to actually ask for your help with a few items the Steering Committee has thought about doing but does not have the time to do on its own. Please note that this list isn’t exhaustive of what could be worked on for v4.0. If you would like to contribute in other ways and other areas of Torque 3D’s develop, then please do! The Steering Committee will set up a GitHub Wiki page where we may list all tasks the community is working on for v4.0. You just need to contact one of us and we’ll add your name and project to the list.

Here is our suggested list of community programming tasks:

• TorqueScript improved console function calls (Pull Request already made by James Urquhart)
• Cppcheck static code analysis
• Compile warnings clean-up
• Update to the latest Bullet library version
• Update PhysX support to the leatest 3.x version
• Master server updated to T3D and included as part of the repository
• ’Codecandy’ OS X work ported to T3D v4.0 with complete basic lighting support
• Linux client basic lighting support
• OBJ mesh file import support
• Any additional image file support that the community would like to see (such as Photoshop)
• Any other Pull Requests once reviewed by the Steering Committee

None of these tasks need to be handled by any one community member and a team of people could work on them. We may also add tasks here as the community desires, but more importantly we’re looking for people to actually work on and finish this work. This isn’t meant as a wish list (we already have a Feature Requests and Suggestions Page).


Community Art
The above community tasks are very programmer oriented and this time around we would like to include the artists of the community. The soldier that is included with the Torque 3D templates is a great example for a FPS game but it is very stylized and specific. It would be great if we had a more generic avatar to choose from that the community could use in a variety of projects. This idea started with the Rift Valley Oculus Rift demo the Steering Committee did for v3.0. Instead of exploring the secluded valley with the soldier, it would have been great to be a hiker with a backpack and a walking stick.

Here are our thoughts on this new, generic avatar:

• Male and female variations
• Default modern style
• Skinnable
• Able to mount clothing items, such as a cap
• Handles nothing in hands, a walking stick, FPS weapons
• Optional Rift Support: Allow full body in 1st person (perhaps missing the head mesh)
• Optional Rift Support: Allow for head and neck modelling

In addition to a new avatar, we would also be looking to the community to create a new wheeled vehicle model. The old (broken) buggy model was removed in v3.0 and the included Cheetah vehicle is very stylized and specific. Perhaps a skinnable Rally car to (take into account T3D’s default vehicle physics), or a new skinnable buggy. It would also be great if this new vehicle included a full interior so it may be driven in a 1st person perspective.

In all cases we’re not necessarily looking for any single person to work on these. We could start with the concept artists in the community to come up with the look and feel, and then draw on the modellers, texture artists, and animators.

Ron will be leading the charge with these art tasks and will be posting a blog going into more detail down the road.


Bug Fixing
Fixing bugs in the code base is something that will always be on-going. For v4.0 we would really like to see the community step up and work on the various issues listed on GitHub. We do need help in working through other people’s issues.

A couple of specific fixes the Steering Committee will be tackling are restoring player debris functionality (we’ve been missing player gooey bits all these years), and fixing the art files included with the Templates to reduce the console spam generated when first converted to DTS files.

We would also like to see all bugs reported in the GarageGames Torque 3D forums to be made into GitHub Issues so we may more easily track them. Bug reports are too easily lost in the forums, and there are even some possible solutions in there waiting to be incorporated into the code base. It would be a great help if community members were to go through the forums and create new GitHub Issues that reference the original forum posts.


Continuing to Update 3rd Party Input Devices
Both the Leap Motion and Oculus Rift are in continuous development right now and their SDKs and being updated every couple of weeks. We will build upon the work started in v3.0 to make sure Torque 3D remains compatible and relevant.


Modular Templates
Continuing the Template clean-up work started in v3.0, we will be looking to make Templates much more modular. Mike will be taking the lead on this:

The base application will load and initialize client subsystems such as the audio system, postFx, lighting, etc. In order to enable the tools we’ll need basic client to server communication in order to load a level. There should be no game or genre specific code at this point. Asset and/or functionality modules will then expand upon the base application. A Player example asset module would be a combination of the art assets, Datablocks, and scripts that allow the default player shape to work -- the base application will use a camera by default. An asset module could also be as simple as a collection of additional skyboxes and cloud textures. Examples of feature modules would be a demonstration of various GUI interfaces, inventory management, weapon usage, gametypes, etc. Once a module is included, the base application and tools then have full usage and interaction with it.

Mike will be writing a blog about this work in the near future.


Documentation and Tutorials
We would like documentation and tutorials to be a focus of this release. To this end here are the Steering Committee’s thoughts on the matter:

• Feature spotlight and guides
• Text and video
• Showcase various tools
• Move all documentation online rather than included in the release package

We are still putting together a list of what we would like to exactly document at this time, and if you have any suggestions we would like to hear them. A main focus is on new users getting started, as well as general tool usage. We also have to take into account the Modular Template work and make sure any videos that would be affected by this work are not made until after that work is complete.


GitHub Web Pages
We are looking to use the GitHub Pages feature to build a web front end for Torque 3D. This will make it much easier to include all current and future docs and videos. We are also looking to include a section for downloading optional content for when the Modular Template work is complete.


Project Manager Updates
The Project Manager work may be done on its own schedule since it has its own repository. Here is some of the work we would like to accomplish while T3D v4.0 is being worked on:

• Export a clean version of your project directory. i.e. DSOs only, no DAEs, clean prefs, etc.
• Pull from a pool of pre-compiled executables when building out a project from a Template.
• Remove style.css requirement so there is no longer a requirement on the Torque 3D directory structure for the Project Manager.

Torque 3D 4.0 Timeline

The Steering Committee is aiming to have three or four releases a year, where a release is defined as merging all development branch changes into the master branch. To that end we are looking to an August or September 2013 release for T3D 4.0. This timeline needs to include a couple weeks of Quality Assurance testing and any work that comes out of that testing, so not all of the next 3 or 4 months is available for development.

Unfortunately, I will not be full-time on Torque 3D development for v4.0. Up to 75% of my time will be spent on helping GarageGames with service work. This service work is important as it keeps the lights on, and has allowed me to be full-time with Torque 3D since we went open source back in September. We’ve had to make adjustments to the v4.0 roadmap to account for this and we may need to make further adjustments down the road.

As always, your help is extremely important in making Torque 3D the best that it can be. The Steering Committee cannot do it alone. We need your help!

- Dave

Important Update: There is some important news that pertains to the T3D v4.0 roadmap. Please read it here.