How should we promote T3D?

#81 The "problem" of Torque is just that it aims for indie game developers and a lot of them are hobbyists who may not have much time and none or no big team in the back.
I don't see this as a problem, but if you want to compete with hollywood like multi-million dollar commercial companys, things can get problematic.

You will not compete in this way until you invest millions of dollars and hire hundreds of people, because that is the way it works.

I don't see the necessity to promote things in this way, the only thing what I am missing is some more community, because at the moment there is just a handful of people here with enough experience to help out others.
I had a very hard start because of that, sometimes I thought things like "who build all this engine and programs? because there seems to be nobody around there who knows how it works."

#82

Quote: I've seen a lot of people get discouraged, and one of the major dividing factors between success and failure, is actually risking it and putting something out there on the line.

This is exactly why this community is so great. People are willing to share talent and effort to further the engine so everyone has better tools to work with. We all know nobody is going to write our game for us, but it is really helpful when someone takes a direction with the tech to really add features someone needs/wants. I think stuff like Winter Leafs .Net work is a great example of this. They are providing a tech path for people who want to worth with .Net languages. You can even use the code without picking up their tool! It does not matter if the tech is in the official repo or not. Another great example is GMK. Now they have put that tool in everyone's hands.

#83 hey Demolishun
how was your diving in GMK code so far?

On my end am on the way to get it running/ updated for T3D v3
However what i noticed is that the physics part of GMK is going to be tricky thing/ i might have to leave that one out( at least for now)

as i get numerous errors on my end/ as am not experienced enough with c++ to understand where it actually breaks :/

btw - regarding your sandbox idea take a look at the terrData.cpp/h
the part with Physics Terrain ;) (just to warn you, those files are actually one of those things that brake my compile)

#84 Jolinar,
I know that T3D is at 3.0 but this video may help with the install of GMK. I know it did for me with 1.2.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6BA_Llj_OE

I do think these was physics issues but it should help cut down the error part.

If you get it up and working right please post a HowTo, for everyone else that may have the same issues.

#85 @Demolishun
I was referring to an actual game. Not supplemental tools.

And, no in no way was that meant to say the community is terrible. Just speaking of the count of finished games vs projects only.

I still stand by the engine, and the community.

#86 @ Kory Imaginism
am aware of that video but thx for pointing me there
sadly v2 and v3 are just 2different shoes especially when u consider the fact that v3 has plenty of new things and some stuff was removed
like the obsolete dif`s

Currently the problem seems to be in T3D/fx/particleEmitter.cpp
the errors go way over the top

terrData.cpp/h are not anymore problematic
after a friend pointed me to a missing include ye i know - things liek those happen when u stare at code

another thing is physBody and a last error that is not crucial hides in terrdata

however my intention is to get my updates available
i do know that they are not going to end up in a official thing
however there are plenty of users here who understand the need of GMK`s mechanics

#87 @smally,

Quote:And, no in no way was that meant to say the community is terrible.

I did not read it that way. You are very correct on finished projects.

I was more referring to the tech behind each project. For a T3D tech demo this will trickle down as features. That is what is happening with Winter Leaf. Except theirs is for a game rather than a tech demo.

@J0linar,
I have not delved in yet. I need to download a copy of 3.0 so I can be on the same page.

#88 JOliner,
I haven't dug in to T3D 3.0 or GMK MIT but thanks for the head's up.
I was going to go over it maybe this weekend if I have time.

I totally agree with the "need of GMK's mechanics" as it makes things like AI, scripted events, and cut scenes much easier.

#89 DOUBLE POST

#90 I think T3D and T2D needs to get things out in to the publics eyes. I know from my experience of UDK and Cry Engine 3. They look great, eg. that video of well a video... Which I don't think attracts people who have experience with game engines but instead attracts the general public and maybe more artists (Which would be great!) I think Ron's work along with the GG's work to support Rift has added a lot of nice publicity.

I know my projects over the years SHOULD have gone further, instead I gave up on them. I am planning a blog on this subject infact looking back at my Torque projects over the years and my perception of them being not up to standard graphically, yet I'm not an artist!

I think the direction to reduce road blocks to get a game out there using Torque 3D WILL result in games being completed.

I remember early TGEA and T3D getting excited and then annoyed as it crashed on adding a tree or something very basic (During TGEA I used TGE for game ideas). Now T3D is 1000x more stable and mature. This trend I think is key to its future.

#91 I would agree. It's in a lot better shape now, than ever. It does actually HAVE tech that is still relevant and it gets better and better which is what matters. One thing I do see a lot that bugs me is people think you have to be in front of the pack on tech for a game and that just isn't true. In all reality you need to know your market. There is a different market segment for each kind of game. Look at torchlight for example. They definitely aren't in front of anyone with the engine or graphics for the game. It looks good enough and the artistic style plays well with that, and they make a decent pull from that game. Enough to make it matter. Though it's not at all up to par with UT4 or Cryengine or any of the big market engines. Their networking could use work, but it works well enough for the majority. Yes, I still bought and played the game, but it's because the game itself was fun! Not because it's peeling my eyeballs with it's insane technical prowess or beauty. That's really what matters, FUN. :)

Honestly, I wouldn't want to attract the unity crowd anyway. I would rather the community came together and made a tech demo as it stands now with 3.0. or shared their projects more. Either way would help serve more people looking over it anyway. GG provides blogs, and the forums and that does provide a good foundation. From there it's really a matter of using them appropriately.

Better visibility to ongoing projects would help.

#92 @smally, I agree, although we all love the eye candy and for some genres it helps to draw people in with the graphics.

But realistically for small teams top notch graphics is a very hard task.

I think T3D 3.0 has a great feature set, and I think the existing demos could be added on to really draw more attention. I think maybe making the existing demos and a few more maps in to a free downloadable team based (rift supported) FPS could be an excellent start.

Yes I think a lot of Unity developers aren't T3D's market. I think T3D more competes with UDK and CryEngine 3, markets and we need to show that you can do more with source code access etc.

#93 After playing Minecraft I have come to the conclusion that accessibility (older hardware) and extreme focus on game play are way more important than high res models and textures. I have not played a game in years that has impressed me as much as this game. I have played less than a week and am considering getting more licenses. It has completely changed the focus of my own development as well.

#94 Minecraft is not for older hardware, it is one of the most resource hungry games out there, because it is written in java.
But if you want to do something like minecraft, you better hurry, because there are a lot of minecraft clones in the making and some look very impressive, in a few years you maybe will have dozens of minecrafts or even hundreds.

#95 Memory wise (it reserves 1 GB of memory), but not in graphics needs. I bet the texture memory footprint is very low. The triangle load can be very low when set to low distance. I bet a GeForce 6600 could run it. I know my 9800 (which is older) runs its maxed out. So does an Intel HD 4000 (though that is newer). My CPUs and graphics cards do not create a significant amount of extra heat that I have noticed when running the game.

Java is not slow, it depends on how you use the tool. It also does JIT compile and runtime optimizations.

The specs are very low even for recommended hardware:
help.mojang.com/customer/portal/articles/325948-minecraft-system-requirements

#96 Yes you can run it, but not very good, some time ago I played minecraft on a 1.8ghz single core cpu with 512mb ram, it worked, but not very good.

But I don't want to play on low distance, I want to play on far and maybe with upgraded HD-graphics pack. Now I even had trouble playing minecraft smoothly on a dualcore laptop 2,4ghz and 4gb ram with intel gma 4500 grapics.

#97 Point being, it's fun otherwise why are you playing it? Minecraft definitely isn't impressive graphics wise (sorry if that offends anyone), but it's more about the sandbox and the flexibility than the graphics.

T3D has a solid enough base, you can make it do anything you want. Yes some things will take modifying the code, so what? I never wanted an overbearing editor that's limited in capability telling me what can and can't be done. It's flexible enough to do what you really need to, add what you want, and build an interface you want. So, job done on that one. I don't see the editor as anything except a level editor anyway. As far as level editors go, this one wins. Yes, it's not an engine to hold your hand, but working with protocols and networks, memory and oses, I don't think it honestly should.

It's true people are mesmerized by shiny. So let's get something super shiny to wave in front of them and publicize it.
[edit] Moved question to appropriate area [/edit]

#98 Minecraft graphics is horrible... Some times I think the idea of having "8-bit" or "16-bit" retro graphics look is just to get away with a slow game.

I made a FPS multiplayer game in Java back around 2003-2004, using Xith 3D (much like Java 3D) and it could render Quake 3 bsp maps, and md3 models, networking was very difficult even for a LAN. But animations killed it!

I am sure now days Java could result in much better looking games than Minecraft, but due to its cube nature it makes it easier to build and delete. Which is why if I wanted to make a clone I would look at using the Cube game engines.

I personally like Terraria and never thought Minecraft was fun. But if I wanted to one up Minecraft I think you need to move away from the cubes and have an easy way to do the same with much better graphics/realistic.

#99 My 10 cents...

I've just started looking at Torque3D again after ruling it out completely a couple of years ago. Back then it kinda sucked. Now, I am starting to like it.

I think it's only with the most recent changes that the visual quality has started to tick the boxes for me. Not long ago I remember spending hours trying to get a scene to look good with the terrain, sky and lighting and fighting with all kinds of weird bugs and things looking low resolution. Trying again recently, it looks awesome.

So I think the first step is to get some really impressive demos out on YouTube to show people how much the visual quality has improved since they last tried.

The next thing that I've always hated about Torque is TorqueScript. It's not really a great language, and more importantly, its not a language that's useful for anything except torque.
Most people will pick an engine that they can hit the ground running with a language they already know, or want to learn anyway.
If you scrape away the torquescript, there's C++, which has never been very user friendly, but torque's age means that the C++ code is even uglier than it needs to be, since C++ has got a bit prettier lately too.

I think a nice scripting interface that makes it easy for people to write and maintain bindings for JavaScript,TypeScript etc. would really make things a lot more accessible. JavaScript is back in fashion these days.

Oh and the biggest thing? Mobile support. Cross platform Android and iOS is where all the cool engines are going, and Torque should go there as soon as possible!

#100 Personally, I think that Android and iOS are going to be required to get interest, but in order to get the open source community really behind Torque, Linux and OSX support needs to happen. I've seen a couple of attempts at getting Linux in, but it seems that they get knocked out because of Q&A knocking out the pull request or branch, or people involved lose interest. I think that it would be wise to pull the existing Linux improvements from other developers that never made it in for whatever reason, and put them in. A good chunk of the open source developers who you would want to help you are going to want Linux support, and the fact that all the existing attempts have failed due to someone losing interest or having their pull requests rejected for [insert reason here] isn't going to help build the community in the ways needed. Furthermore, one important thing to note is this, the reason kickstarters for platform support have failed is because of a combination of bad timing and the fact that to be blunt, Torque isn't as up there feature wise as some of the existing open source engines. The cross platform support needs to be done, and not on a contingency of kickstarter funding if you guys want it to take off. To be blunt, I could very easily just use Crystal Space instead of Torque, and it already supports Windows, Mac, and Linux and is much more feature complete.

To be blunt, the majority of the open source developers out there have better, more fully featured options. The majority of indies out there will go to Unity due to it being easier to work with for beginners and it tending to have a lot better functionality, support, and backing behind it. Open source isn't going to be a functional selling point, you have to have the feature set to compete with the other engines in order to get attention. It really doesn't help that Torque has a bad rep from the old days, and in order to fix it, you will need to get it to be able to compete with the other guys in order to convince people to work with it. Recently I saw a pull request rejected because it had 64 bit changes mixed in with the Linux changes and was a mess. It's understandable that the pull request was a mess, so that's why it was rejected; but the reality is, those 64 bit changes would be needed to handle things like Linux x64 machines, especially with the amount of architecture specific code in Torque.

In the end, I think the best plan of attack to actually get people to come to torque will be the following:

1. Get Linux and OSX working, this is critical as a good amount of people who you will want to help you on the rest of the steps will be working from Linux or OSX.
2. Android and iOS support
3. Reduce the amount of platform specific code that conflicts with standard C++. Torque currently spits in the face of standards like the US CERT secure coding standards because of the redefinitions of standard C++ functionality. That really is a massive code quality issue there, and can prevent things like major companies (especially in defense) or government entities from even considering Torque.
4. Modernize the engine, possibly by merging Torque2D and Torque3D in to just Torque. This means putting more code in to components and scripting, and adopting a component entity system approach.
5. Move from TorqueScript to something like Javascript or Lua. TorqueScript is too specialized and most incoming newbies will want to use a scripting language they already know.
6. A Unity style editor. Like it or not, this is going to be the way to convince more rookies to come over and use Torque.
7. Expand on the functionality of the engine.

The most important thing of the whole lot however is going to be OSX and Linux for the immediate future. With those two platforms supported, you are able to bring in a lot more developers who otherwise won't help you. Trying to force Kickstarter funding in order to do that is not going to get very far.