Torque 2D 3.0 Update

Torque 2D 3.0 Update

It has been a little while since the last official update regarding the 3.0 release of Torque 2D. 3.0 is getting closer and closer to release but development has been rather slow. Before we dive into the major features of 3.0 and the remaining work the Steering Committee wanted to give a huge shout out and thanks to the following people for contributing to Torque 2D:

• Simon Love
• Daniel Buckmaster
• Charlie Patterson
• Paul Jan
• Tim Newell
• Cedric Kemp
• William Lee Sims
• Cameron Porter / Frogger
• Richard Ranft
• James Urquhart
• practicing01
• TRON

Apologies for any people we have missed. The Steering Committee does what they can to keep the ship moving but without the efforts of the community as a whole Torque 2D will only slowly creep along, the engine belongs to all of us and therefore it is up to all of us to make it the best it can be. Remember, you don’t have to be a developer to contribute to the Torque 2D efforts. Here are some of the ways you can contribute:

• Fix bugs / contribute features
• Report issues and make sure they get on the Github tracker
• Write docs/tutorials
• Contribute to the forums
• Spread the word to friends and other communities
• Many others

If you want to help out with Torque 2D but don’t know where to start please post in the forums and we’ll point you in the right direction. Now without further ado here are a couple of announcements.

New Steering Committee Member: Derek Bronson

I’m very happy to announce a new steering committee member. I’ve already mentioned it in IRC, but it’s worth posting a full introduction here. Long time Torque supporter and ex-GG employee Derek Bronson has joined the effort. A few of you may remember him. Derek ported the Rainy Day tutorial to TGB and wrote the tutorial for it. For a while, he was in charge of the GG.com store. He’s participated in blogs, forums, and IRC many times. While working at GG, I bounced all of my ideas regarding TGB, iTorque 2D, and Torque 2D MIT off him. While not a coder, he played a very important role in helping improve the products. Heck, even after his departure from GG he constantly asked about Torque 2D, the community, and suggested improvements. So much, in fact, I told him to get on the steering committee and help make a difference.

I’ll let Derek introduce himself and his role on the steering committee.

In his own words:

Quote:When I joined GG in 2007 I instantly fell in love with T2D. Throughout my journey at GG I got to experience a lot of different roles and was involved with all the engines in some form or another but after all that time I still maintain a special place in my heart for T2D. After I left GG I kept an eye on the open source efforts and provided a lot of feedback to Mich. He told me to put my time where my mouth was so I applied to join the group. I’ve watched this community throughout the years and am constantly amazed by the spirit of game making it has been able to maintain. If anyone can take this technology and push it to new heights it is this group of people.

I’m excited to bring my program management experience to the Steering Committee and plan to focus on process, structure and communication to better enable the community as a whole in driving the engine technology forward. If you have any ideas on how to make the T2D experience better or you want to get involved with T2D but not sure where to start please email me at derek.a.bronson at gmail.com.

3.0 Release

A New Platform Appears
This release is really shaping up to be all about platforms. The initial MIT 2.0 release was a solid start with support for Windows, OSX, and iOS. The 3.0 release will double the number of platforms you can publish your games on. First we announced Android, then Linux, and now… the web! Thanks to the work of James Urquhart, Torque 2D can compile to JavaScript with the help of Emscripten. No plugins are needed to play T2D games, just a WebGL compliant browser like Chrome or Firefox. As with any of the other new platforms, what is needed now are willing testers to help identify potential issues. A setup guide is already available on the wiki to help you get started.

Linux
Thanks to Frogger’s dedication, he ported the engine to Linux in record breaking time. Linux support has always been at the top of feature requests for the engine, so hopefully this new platform will help bring in all the Linux devs who have been aching for a dedicated 2D engine.

Sixty Four
Also on the topic of platforms, another great addition from James is 64-bit support. So for native 64-bit platforms like Windows, OSX, and Linux - it would be great to get testing and feedback on how well T2D works as a 64-bit app.

Top Features
As a quick reminder here are the other major features currently sitting in the 3.0 development branch waiting to be released to the wild:

• Android Support
• Leap Motion Support
• XBox 360 Controller Support
• Spine Support
• Fixes and More…

For more fine details see the previous blog on 3.0 here. Keep in mind that you can play around and use 3.0 today, no waiting for an official release needed. We encourage everyone to try out the latest development branch and offer their feedback.

Remaining Work

The feature work for 3.0 is primarily done but there are a few remaining issues that we feel are blockers to fully releasing 3.0. As mentioned above several people have dedicated their time to help 3.0 become a reality but we need just a little more to get over the release hurdle. The full list of issues for 3.0 can be found here: 3.0 Remaining issues

Blockers
There are three remaining issues that we consider to be blockers to the 3.0 release. If you can help in any way (providing fixes, testing other’s fixes, adding more detail to the issue) please do so we can get this release into the hands of everyone.

Testing
This is no official QA group for T2D so we need the help of everyone to make sure there the engine stays solid. If you have a few moments please grab the development branch (it’s as easy as downloading a zip) and play around with the various samples or bring your own projects over. In particular if you have a Linux machine or an Android device we’d highly encourage you to test out the new platform support. Please let us know about your experiences on the T2D forums. If you discover any particular bugs please post them on Github or start a forum thread and we’ll pull it over.

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The release is almost there, it just needs a gentle nudge from this awesome community to get out the door. Let’s work together to continue making T2D the best 2D engine available!

Regards,
Mich