Penny for your thoughts?
by Demolishun · 01/09/2014 (10:39 am) · 9 comments
Over the holiday season I took some time to think about what I had accomplished and the direction I was going with game development. It was a bit painful in some ways, but it opened my eyes to new possibilities. The main question I had was, "Is Torque 3D the engine I need to meet my goals?" After some deliberation and soul searching I came to the conclusion that T3D is perhaps not the engine I need right now.
This revelation surprised me as I really like Torque Tech. The T2D and T3D engines are really good engines. However, one sticky point that has been bothering me is dependence upon the Windows OS for T3D. I know there are ports in progress, but that may not be enough in the next year or so. So I decided to go look to see what is out there. Boy was I surprised. There are LOTS of engines out there. Some expensive and some less so. What got me is that some engines are tailoring themselves to specific game types. One engine was designed around open worlds with network fed data. So to make a long story short I found an engine that I think will do most of what I want, has full source code, has been used in real games, and has a permissive license for both usage and source code: Panda.
Why Panda? It is already using my preferred scripting language Python for one. I spent a lot of time getting T3D to work with Python and even so it is still not the best marriage (at least the way I did it). So having a decent binding to that language right off the bat is a plus for me. Next is that it has already been proven in an MMO. Now my goal is not to make an MMO, but something more scaled back. I will be adding a lot of social aspects to my project so having MMO like features is a good thing. What really got me interested in Panda though was this: It is not a packaged solution with a prescribed usage of how the engine should operate.
Don't get me wrong, their engine supports all the bells and whistles of a full game engine. It is just not handing you an implementation to modify. Instead it has examples of every piece of the engine for the most part. The programmer is required to put those pieces together. I like this minimalist approach. It saves me the time of tracking down some script file somewhere to do map loading or change a setting. So I don't think the engine is necessarily better than T3D, just more attuned to what I need at the moment.
So where do I go from here? That is a question I wanted to ask this community. What does Garage Games mean to me (you)? Is it an engine, an indie community, or something else? In the past GG was one of the biggest engines you could get source code to. So it became a hub of indie devs trying to make their dream. It was not really about the engine in my opinion, but the idea behind the engine: to make an awesome game. I like to think that we could be the community that encourages people regardless of their choice of tech. I know many people here use engines of all kinds. It would way cool if a Torque engine was not the best for a particular game type we could say, "Hey, use <engine> for that." After all, that is what being an indie dev is all about. It is not about brand, but a new way to game.
So the main question I have for you is: What do you want Garage Games to be?
As for me I will continue to troll the GG forums and help where I can. I will be taking a different direction in my game and thought I might post blogs, but I am not sure how the community would take to that. I don't want to pollute the blog space with competing tech if it is not cool. I will post it to my website. I will also continue to support the links page for Torque related tech. So I am not going anywhere. This community is too great and awesome.
Please let me know your thoughts. Thanks
This revelation surprised me as I really like Torque Tech. The T2D and T3D engines are really good engines. However, one sticky point that has been bothering me is dependence upon the Windows OS for T3D. I know there are ports in progress, but that may not be enough in the next year or so. So I decided to go look to see what is out there. Boy was I surprised. There are LOTS of engines out there. Some expensive and some less so. What got me is that some engines are tailoring themselves to specific game types. One engine was designed around open worlds with network fed data. So to make a long story short I found an engine that I think will do most of what I want, has full source code, has been used in real games, and has a permissive license for both usage and source code: Panda.
Why Panda? It is already using my preferred scripting language Python for one. I spent a lot of time getting T3D to work with Python and even so it is still not the best marriage (at least the way I did it). So having a decent binding to that language right off the bat is a plus for me. Next is that it has already been proven in an MMO. Now my goal is not to make an MMO, but something more scaled back. I will be adding a lot of social aspects to my project so having MMO like features is a good thing. What really got me interested in Panda though was this: It is not a packaged solution with a prescribed usage of how the engine should operate.
Don't get me wrong, their engine supports all the bells and whistles of a full game engine. It is just not handing you an implementation to modify. Instead it has examples of every piece of the engine for the most part. The programmer is required to put those pieces together. I like this minimalist approach. It saves me the time of tracking down some script file somewhere to do map loading or change a setting. So I don't think the engine is necessarily better than T3D, just more attuned to what I need at the moment.
So where do I go from here? That is a question I wanted to ask this community. What does Garage Games mean to me (you)? Is it an engine, an indie community, or something else? In the past GG was one of the biggest engines you could get source code to. So it became a hub of indie devs trying to make their dream. It was not really about the engine in my opinion, but the idea behind the engine: to make an awesome game. I like to think that we could be the community that encourages people regardless of their choice of tech. I know many people here use engines of all kinds. It would way cool if a Torque engine was not the best for a particular game type we could say, "Hey, use <engine> for that." After all, that is what being an indie dev is all about. It is not about brand, but a new way to game.
So the main question I have for you is: What do you want Garage Games to be?
As for me I will continue to troll the GG forums and help where I can. I will be taking a different direction in my game and thought I might post blogs, but I am not sure how the community would take to that. I don't want to pollute the blog space with competing tech if it is not cool. I will post it to my website. I will also continue to support the links page for Torque related tech. So I am not going anywhere. This community is too great and awesome.
Please let me know your thoughts. Thanks
About the author
I love programming, I love programming things that go click, whirr, boom. For organized T3D Links visit: http://demolishun.com/?page_id=67
#2
From time to time, I also use Unity3D and at the moment UDK.
T3D I wish suited all my needs but it doesn't at the moment. And sometimes for that gametype you want to be creating the game and not the standard features of said gametype. Pick the engine that suits your needs just like almost anything else in life.
Post your games progress your tech and ideas its all interesting even if it isn't T3D/T2D. Garage Games to me is just that, as the title suggests is a place for developing games indie style and usually seems to be VERY small teams here.
01/09/2014 (2:40 pm)
I think GG is the forum I enjoy the most especially the blogs.From time to time, I also use Unity3D and at the moment UDK.
T3D I wish suited all my needs but it doesn't at the moment. And sometimes for that gametype you want to be creating the game and not the standard features of said gametype. Pick the engine that suits your needs just like almost anything else in life.
Post your games progress your tech and ideas its all interesting even if it isn't T3D/T2D. Garage Games to me is just that, as the title suggests is a place for developing games indie style and usually seems to be VERY small teams here.
#3
I tinker in about a dozen engines but admittedly I spend most of my time with Torque. Every engine out there has strengths and weaknesses, pros and cons. For me, any engine with free source code is head and shoulders above engines without it.
I still say I'd rather script in Lua than Python but Panda 3D is very cool. And since Notepad++ handles Python in a way that helps keep me from shooting myself in the tabs it's not that painful to use.
01/10/2014 (12:59 pm)
Hey! TGE was proven in an MMO.... ;pI tinker in about a dozen engines but admittedly I spend most of my time with Torque. Every engine out there has strengths and weaknesses, pros and cons. For me, any engine with free source code is head and shoulders above engines without it.
I still say I'd rather script in Lua than Python but Panda 3D is very cool. And since Notepad++ handles Python in a way that helps keep me from shooting myself in the tabs it's not that painful to use.
#4
My philosophy is that one should use the tool that one finds fit. So if you have found an engine that makes you more productive then you should use it.
Personally I see Torque 3D MIT as a good ally for years to come. Unless all abandons Windows here and now... unlikely :o)
Also I am not into making games for smart phones or tabs as that market is really overflown due to the gold rush fever so Android and Mac is not a must for now.
Please blog about your discoveries and tell us what you find of interesting stuff :o)
01/10/2014 (2:38 pm)
Open worlds games are great. My concern with them is that they rarely are good for a one man indie team to work on(seems like a never ending project). The problem is actually the level design and game contents. A lot of scripting manpower hours go into making levels/missions interesting and fun.My philosophy is that one should use the tool that one finds fit. So if you have found an engine that makes you more productive then you should use it.
Personally I see Torque 3D MIT as a good ally for years to come. Unless all abandons Windows here and now... unlikely :o)
Also I am not into making games for smart phones or tabs as that market is really overflown due to the gold rush fever so Android and Mac is not a must for now.
Please blog about your discoveries and tell us what you find of interesting stuff :o)
#5
When I think of engines that are not able to handle open worlds by default I think of valves engines, all the id-tech engines and maybe unreal engine.
With a new engine there is still a big way to go.
01/11/2014 (1:52 am)
I don't see why Torque should not be able to handle open world games, 64 square kilometers of terrain in one level is totally possible, with a grid size of 2, which is still acceptable, after that it would get ugly, just as an example and there is surely space for modifications.When I think of engines that are not able to handle open worlds by default I think of valves engines, all the id-tech engines and maybe unreal engine.
With a new engine there is still a big way to go.
#6
I'd been thinking on a isometric action, rpg, roguelike and procedurally generating the whole thing in sections. (single player rather than an MMO, though)
Have player specific randomized missions at various randomized but failry equally spread out points, and constant "living-breathing" AI who could be loaded/unloaded depending on distance from player.
Also isometric reduces the amount of the world on show, allowing for more detail/objects on screen because the camera is never looking through everything into the distance/horizon. And also this could mean mass culling of rendering objects, storing non-immediate-vicinity AI virtually instead of using physical objects (something I kind of do for AI load/save states in Airship Dragoon).
I did knock up a fast-and-dirty tech demo of the procedural sectionized world creation and the isometric camera with screen-space directional movement over the Xmas period.
The real issue with large worlds is populating them and having them run nicely without being empty - hence my ideas above. Oh ... and avoiding floating point issues of course! ;)
01/11/2014 (2:27 am)
In between messing about with updates and currently mocap animations (a mild pain in the bum for getting to work with my custom models) for Airship Dragoon, I've been thinking of how to do a large, open world.I'd been thinking on a isometric action, rpg, roguelike and procedurally generating the whole thing in sections. (single player rather than an MMO, though)
Have player specific randomized missions at various randomized but failry equally spread out points, and constant "living-breathing" AI who could be loaded/unloaded depending on distance from player.
Also isometric reduces the amount of the world on show, allowing for more detail/objects on screen because the camera is never looking through everything into the distance/horizon. And also this could mean mass culling of rendering objects, storing non-immediate-vicinity AI virtually instead of using physical objects (something I kind of do for AI load/save states in Airship Dragoon).
I did knock up a fast-and-dirty tech demo of the procedural sectionized world creation and the isometric camera with screen-space directional movement over the Xmas period.
The real issue with large worlds is populating them and having them run nicely without being empty - hence my ideas above. Oh ... and avoiding floating point issues of course! ;)
#7
01/11/2014 (4:13 am)
Btw @Demo, you owe us all a penny! 
#8
01/13/2014 (3:29 am)
100% would read more. It says right there - Garage Games. Not Torque games :).
#9
I appreciate your enthusiasm.
Then I will definitely be bringing some hopefully fun blogs on my adventure.
01/13/2014 (11:50 pm)
Thank you fine folks of GG!I appreciate your enthusiasm.
Then I will definitely be bringing some hopefully fun blogs on my adventure.
Torque Owner Lukas Joergensen
WinterLeaf Entertainment
I don't care if you post tech written in another language.
Tech is tech, if tech good, me port tech!
Edit: Also congrats on finding an engine that suits your needs, I hope it will help you make your dreams come true!
Personally, I never cared for Panda. Then again T3D has always been the only engine to suit my needs :P