Torque 3D Development - GDC Live Edition
by Brett Seyler · 04/04/2009 (2:31 pm) · 333 comments
Wow...another GDC behind us. This was a big one. I dare say it was GG's biggest ever. Josh Williams and I gave a talk on Thursday titles "The Future of Web Games" which ended up being packed full with standing room only. There was a tremendous amount of interest in both InstantAction Technology and Torque 3D. That went off fabulously. We did some private demos for the big gun studios. The GG booth was jam packed for 3 days straight, and despite bringing a full staff of GG'ers to San Francisco to help, I think everyone was overloaded with excited questions and lots of "when can I get that!!??" The really exciting part for Torque 3D stuff (which was absurdely well recieved) is that we've still only shown probably 50% of what we're working on. Some of you saw Tom Spilman's uStream walkthough of the "South Pacific" demo. That's all been captured and posted for you relentless viewing and scrutinizing below =) Obviously a lot of people put hard work into Torque 3D, but we really owe a lot to Sickhead Games for helping us SHOW rather than tell all of what Torque 3D is capable of.
Tom's gone way above and beyond creating a new terrain implementation (as you'll see in the videos), physics, procedural object placement brushing tools (called "Forest Kit" after the original tech it's based on), and of course, the new Advanced Lighting. It's not just Tom though. Russell Fincher, a great artist, is responsible for making most of this look as good as it does. James did the River and Road tools and Ross worked a lot on bending the World Editor to make all this stuff easily accessible and easier to use. That's just the high points, but they really are a great crew. We're lucky to have their help.
So, in this blog, I'm just posting the Torque 3D relevant footage from GDC. You'll see two demos below, both pretty ground-breaking stuff. There's a lot more on the way. This shakey cam stuff is great, but the video is low resolution and I want to get some straight-from-the-machine captures out to really show how good this all looks and how easy it all is to use.
There truly is a lot more to come. There's a more in depth look at the World Editor, a focus on the Road and River tools, Gerhard's AI and GPU Cloth, Physics, new demos, genre kits, and more. We're also going to try to get a live demo embedded on the website so you can see this stuff for real. All that, and our first build for pre-order customers is just around the corner. Since we opened up the pre-order promotion last week, you guys almost broke our ecommerce system with the flood of purchases. Sorry to those of you who were turned away while we tried to patch things up last week. Hopefully everyone who wanted in got in. Shirts are on their way, and the Torque 3D private forums are alive with anticipation. I can't wait to see what you'll all do with this new technology. I have high hopes :)
I also know that there a lot of unanswered questions from the nearly 500 comments on the last blog. I'm going to re-read those thoroughly this week and try to answer them all. Thanks for you patience and thanks again to everyone whose kept the faith and stuck with us. It's great to know there's still such a huge community behind Torque.
More development blogs to come. This is post #16.
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, 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 - 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.
#2
04/04/2009 (2:35 pm)
Haha...nice, Taylor. Vimeo was giving me fits trying to get these uploaded. Sorry for the late arrival and low-res vids by the way. You can see what's going on of course, but I definitely am going to follow these up with higher quality stuff. So much to do! 
#3
twitter.com/tallgamer
04/04/2009 (2:37 pm)
Okay seriously I am going to put on a helmet next time that just blew my mind to see it in action. Good stuff!twitter.com/tallgamer
#4
04/04/2009 (2:59 pm)
Looking good! :) 
#5
Few things that concerns me in those video's, but im sure that is already being taken care off (and it might just be a video issue).
Anyways, gogo, more movies, more more more.. And, most important, ofcourse a beta hehe :)
04/04/2009 (3:02 pm)
Sweet, cant wait for the beta :)Few things that concerns me in those video's, but im sure that is already being taken care off (and it might just be a video issue).
Anyways, gogo, more movies, more more more.. And, most important, ofcourse a beta hehe :)
#6
04/04/2009 (3:07 pm)
torque 3d engine of the year 09, most definitely!
#7
04/04/2009 (3:11 pm)
Great, thanks for this! 
#8
04/04/2009 (3:22 pm)
I was watching your upload progress on Vimeo and drinking in the South Pacific as the tide came in. Kudos to Sickhead and GG. Very impressive.
#9
04/04/2009 (3:40 pm)
Thanks, Brett! It's been a fantastic experience to watch all the T3D developers at Garage Games and elsewhere make Torque look so darn good, even more so for me to be able put it all to good use in this particular demo. There are still a few more surprises to come in the South Pacific map, as we finish up a little more tech and polish everything in anticipation of the Torque 3D release. Hang in there, fellas... not long now! 
#10
04/04/2009 (3:45 pm)
Managed to catch those earlier today, well part 1 and 2... Everything looks awesome. Gotta love those trees swaying when you lob a grenade into them and the water tower floating down the river. Good job everyone. 
#11
Oh the endless possiblities of physics based puzzles!
04/04/2009 (3:55 pm)
Wow, that really does look amazing.Oh the endless possiblities of physics based puzzles!
#12
look how many already posted and the blog was just mad not to long ago. :P i kind of got ahead at watching the first 3 videos as i seen them on vimeo but the other 2 was messed up when i was looking at them. good GCD videos many have been waiting on them. i will still wait for that cloth video i want to see that cloth. :P if you guys can i would show that cloth on a persons cloths if we can make cloths out of it with the stock engine.
i also heard you saying that this is for high spec computers how high is the spec for the South Pacific demo. i know i don't need to worry about my secs i got a high end computer. i want to know so i know where the specs are that people will need for a game with high detail and high everything basically like that demo.
with the forest kit this engine will be better then cryengine as i worked with cryengine and man is it slow. the game is fast and fine but working with the engine even when i add in all 8 ram its super slow still to work with the engine. this will be engine of the way of 2009 it beats cryengine by far and people think cryengine is the best its not the best its not even in the top 10 if i was to put it on a list of good engines.
people can complain about a 1k price tag for this engine i think you guys should put it at 5k because its worth allot more then 5k still but it still makes it worth he money. who wants to pay for a worse engine like cryengine that cost well over 1 mill i rather pay 1k for this engine thats better. :P
still want to know what that forest kit will cost i hope the price tag on that gets released soon as i would like to buy it if its worth what ever price they going to make it for. if that kit will be priced at $250 or less i will jump on on that kit so fast i would not even have to think 2 times. now if priced more then $250 then ya i need to look and put more thought into it. as anything thats priced higher then 1/4 of the engine price needs to be thought though. :P
much like like that kit that cost $5,500k that is out of line if you price something well over the cost of the engine when you have to own the engine be for you can even buy the kit. to bad hes not thinking things over on that kit that much as me i would of changed to price on that so fast as its priced more then what engine costs which i would never do. engine is more important then a kit. :P
04/04/2009 (3:59 pm)
well i only got one question what parts are the the kits in these GDC demos. i know the placing of trees is and i think the river and road is part of that is the rest part of the engine. i rally think the forest kit should of been part of the engine and not a kit. i just trying to find out whats all in the value of the engine and not the kits as we have no clue how much that forest kit is going to cost who knows it might be another $1k i rather look at the engine stuff not the kit stuff right now. :P and ya you need higher quality movies for these so i can see it full screen so i can see details of that forest kit.look how many already posted and the blog was just mad not to long ago. :P i kind of got ahead at watching the first 3 videos as i seen them on vimeo but the other 2 was messed up when i was looking at them. good GCD videos many have been waiting on them. i will still wait for that cloth video i want to see that cloth. :P if you guys can i would show that cloth on a persons cloths if we can make cloths out of it with the stock engine.
i also heard you saying that this is for high spec computers how high is the spec for the South Pacific demo. i know i don't need to worry about my secs i got a high end computer. i want to know so i know where the specs are that people will need for a game with high detail and high everything basically like that demo.
with the forest kit this engine will be better then cryengine as i worked with cryengine and man is it slow. the game is fast and fine but working with the engine even when i add in all 8 ram its super slow still to work with the engine. this will be engine of the way of 2009 it beats cryengine by far and people think cryengine is the best its not the best its not even in the top 10 if i was to put it on a list of good engines.
people can complain about a 1k price tag for this engine i think you guys should put it at 5k because its worth allot more then 5k still but it still makes it worth he money. who wants to pay for a worse engine like cryengine that cost well over 1 mill i rather pay 1k for this engine thats better. :P
still want to know what that forest kit will cost i hope the price tag on that gets released soon as i would like to buy it if its worth what ever price they going to make it for. if that kit will be priced at $250 or less i will jump on on that kit so fast i would not even have to think 2 times. now if priced more then $250 then ya i need to look and put more thought into it. as anything thats priced higher then 1/4 of the engine price needs to be thought though. :P
much like like that kit that cost $5,500k that is out of line if you price something well over the cost of the engine when you have to own the engine be for you can even buy the kit. to bad hes not thinking things over on that kit that much as me i would of changed to price on that so fast as its priced more then what engine costs which i would never do. engine is more important then a kit. :P
#13
04/04/2009 (4:04 pm)
Brandon. Punctuation. Please. 
#15
Also, how much do you expect to charge for the Forest Kit?
Thanks.
04/04/2009 (4:09 pm)
Will Gerhard's AI and GPU Cloth be included with the Beta or Final release of Torque 3D or will it be extra?Also, how much do you expect to charge for the Forest Kit?
Thanks.
#16
The South Pacific demo is incredible!
04/04/2009 (4:31 pm)
Watching this as it was recorded was traumatizing!The South Pacific demo is incredible!
#17
04/04/2009 (4:39 pm)
Nice but I have no money! :( 
#18
Also, for those that complained about the money, 505$ is hella worth it.
04/04/2009 (4:39 pm)
I heard them saw that the PHYX plugin is not going to be in the beta or demo release? And is there a date on the first beta? Also, for those that complained about the money, 505$ is hella worth it.
#19
Im still having hard time with the "splash" screen though, but im sure once our game is ready i can talk "business" with GG about that :)
Anyways, thats faaaaar into the future :)
04/04/2009 (4:54 pm)
Yeah agree with kevin, 505$ is pretty decent price (tho 505$ is only if you already own TGEA) :PIm still having hard time with the "splash" screen though, but im sure once our game is ready i can talk "business" with GG about that :)
Anyways, thats faaaaar into the future :)
#20
@Brandon: Dude! I see paragraphs and periods! Nice =) If we get you to start capitalizing, you're going to be a poet :p I kid...joking of course :)
It sounds like you have pretty much the same questions. What parts of what is show here is included in the Torque 3D SDK? Well, it's basically everything except the FK brush editor and some of the special tree physics I think. The tree stuff you could do without the FK, but FK makes it very easy, and FK won't be anything like $1k. Sickhead's been working on it for a long time now, but they're also good indie dudes, and I'm sure it will be affordable and really great bang for the buck.
You also mentioned hardware spec, so I'll talk about that a bit. Like everyone at GDC, we're running high-end machines to show this kind of stuff at high res and high frames. At present, as I think Tom says in the video, shadows still need a lot of optimizing, and the terrain has quite a bit of room to optimize as well. We're aiming for a SM 2.0 min-spec, assuming you'll have 256MB of video RAM. 512MB cards work *much* better, but as I said, we've still got a lot of optimizing to do. There *are* fallbacks past this min spec, but at that point we have to switch to Basic Lighting (baked + player shadow), and other stuff has to get tuned down a bit too.
I should say this is *totally* normal and acceptable for modern games and game engines. I spent a lot of time in both Gamebyo's booth, and in the Crytek booth. The Crytek guys were running ridiculous SLI machines (probably at least 2x the power of what we had running Torque 3D), and the editor still chugged frequently. Gamebryo stuff looked a bit nicer than I've seen before. They're playing catch up with some things Torque has had for a long time, but they've also done a great job with their new component system and UI. It's an intimidating editor, but I was impressed what an improvement it is over their 2.6 SDK. Most of their investment looked like it went into the cross-platform (as in PS3 and Xbox, Gamebryo is still Windows only) improvements. They've got a really nice system for real time updates on console. The other AAA engine booths (Vicous, Trinigy, etc.) were pretty much empty from what I could see.
04/04/2009 (4:57 pm)
@Sorin: Quote:Will Gerhard's AI and GPU Cloth be included with the Beta or Final release of Torque 3D or will it be extra?The AI code is still being merged, so I don't know if it will be in the first beta, but it will be part of the final release provided we don't run into some kind of unforseen incompatibility. Because I'm not sure how well some of Gerhard's stuff will merge with the core, we might only release stuff like the cloth, his PSSM lighting (SM 3.0 min spec, unknown if this will come together or not yet), and of course the demo level assets as a kit or with the core SDK.
Quote:Also, how much do you expect to charge for the Forest Kit?That's up to Sickhead, but it were GG's I'd say it's worth quite a bit. Maybe $250-400. Somewhere in that range. Nothing's been determined AFAIK yet. We'll do a full "Forest Kit" blog at some point detailing what it does, what it adds, what's included, with pricing, etc. I still think we should change the name though :) At it's core, it's a procedurally painting brush that works with all kinds of objects or combinations of objects. I know some of the tree physics and stuff like that is also special FK code too. Anyway, more info on that to come...
@Brandon: Dude! I see paragraphs and periods! Nice =) If we get you to start capitalizing, you're going to be a poet :p I kid...joking of course :)
It sounds like you have pretty much the same questions. What parts of what is show here is included in the Torque 3D SDK? Well, it's basically everything except the FK brush editor and some of the special tree physics I think. The tree stuff you could do without the FK, but FK makes it very easy, and FK won't be anything like $1k. Sickhead's been working on it for a long time now, but they're also good indie dudes, and I'm sure it will be affordable and really great bang for the buck.
You also mentioned hardware spec, so I'll talk about that a bit. Like everyone at GDC, we're running high-end machines to show this kind of stuff at high res and high frames. At present, as I think Tom says in the video, shadows still need a lot of optimizing, and the terrain has quite a bit of room to optimize as well. We're aiming for a SM 2.0 min-spec, assuming you'll have 256MB of video RAM. 512MB cards work *much* better, but as I said, we've still got a lot of optimizing to do. There *are* fallbacks past this min spec, but at that point we have to switch to Basic Lighting (baked + player shadow), and other stuff has to get tuned down a bit too.
I should say this is *totally* normal and acceptable for modern games and game engines. I spent a lot of time in both Gamebyo's booth, and in the Crytek booth. The Crytek guys were running ridiculous SLI machines (probably at least 2x the power of what we had running Torque 3D), and the editor still chugged frequently. Gamebryo stuff looked a bit nicer than I've seen before. They're playing catch up with some things Torque has had for a long time, but they've also done a great job with their new component system and UI. It's an intimidating editor, but I was impressed what an improvement it is over their 2.6 SDK. Most of their investment looked like it went into the cross-platform (as in PS3 and Xbox, Gamebryo is still Windows only) improvements. They've got a really nice system for real time updates on console. The other AAA engine booths (Vicous, Trinigy, etc.) were pretty much empty from what I could see.
Torque Owner Taylor Petrick
In this case, I'm first to comment on some AWESOME videos! Thanks for posting these Brett. ;)